Poor Man's indexer

[dannyrocci]

Well needed to make a pickup for the tachometer that I am adding to my lathe and need to be able to index the spindle. When I bought my lathe it was a change gear lathe that I added a gearbox to but I did keep the change gears. So the plan was to take the 60 tooth gear and fine a way to mount it to the spindle so that I could use it to index with. Here is what I came up with nothing all that amazing but it got the job.

Danny

 

[bradjacob]

Pretty neat Danny...

 

[BakoRoy]

Danny,
You are a little short on text, but from what I see you used the gear to make another indexer that you mounted on the gear extension of the spindle. Where did you mount the lock? Into the collet lever fulcrum hole? What is that you are using to mill the slots?
BakoRoy

 

[mbphoton]

Danny,
You are a little short on text, but from what I see you used the gear to make another indexer that you mounted on the gear extension of the spindle. Where did you mount the lock? Into the collet lever fulcrum hole? What is that you are using to mill the slots?
BakoRoy

It looks to me like an air pencil grinder with a small key cutter.

 

[dannyrocci]

Danny,
You are a little short on text, but from what I see you used the gear to make another indexer that you mounted on the gear extension of the spindle. Where did you mount the lock? Into the collet lever fulcrum hole? What is that you are using to mill the slots?
BakoRoy

Hey BakoRoy I will try and be a little more clear. "The poor man's indexer" was using the change gear to index the spindle. The part that I made is for the light sense for the Tachometer that I am adding. The Tachometer needs 60 impulses per revolution to accurately give me rpm's. Since I had a 60 tooth change gear I used that to index with. You are right on with where I mounted the lock, just, and I am cutting the teeth with an air pencil grinder with a dremel hss steal cutter bit. I made the part out of aluminium because I figured steal would be to hard to cut through with the pencil grinder and I am glad that I did. Here are a couple more picture that hopeful will help

Danny

 

[BakoRoy]

Ah yes, you did mention the tachometer pickup in the first sentence, too bad I couldn't remember that when I got to the end of the paragraph! Anyway, now all you need is a locator and the next time you need a spindle indexer all you will need to do is pull off the gear cover!
I need to look for one of those air pencils, looks a lot less bulky than a Dremel despite the hose.
BakoRoy