I'm trying to design a rotary fixture for flipping a range of parts that vary from 10-16" OD x .75-1.5" thick.
Thinking a big "double-V" shaped block mounted to the rotary would provide contact on two points 120* apart and a self-centering/leveling function. I'd need a tailstock to support the far end (probably with a few doweled positions to allow the 2.5" stroke to cover the range of diameters) also with a V-block that would hopefully provide the same self-leveling function but that is assuming that the tailstock shaft stays straight and doesn't rotate at all...
Something maybe along these lines:
I've never seen one of these tailstocks, I'm curious if this would be feasible in real world circumstances... Anybody with one of these units have any idea how much I could expect the shaft to move? In other words: How much will the part to rock about the rotary axis or droop/lift from the table end to the tailstock?
Material is cast iron (parts have been machined on all faces by this point) but the cutting loads are already light (40% max spindle on Haas VF#SS machines). Being able to cut both sides of these in one setup would still be a huge throughput gain even if we slowed our cycle down by 30% to accommodate a fixture that wasn't rock solid.
Thinking a big "double-V" shaped block mounted to the rotary would provide contact on two points 120* apart and a self-centering/leveling function. I'd need a tailstock to support the far end (probably with a few doweled positions to allow the 2.5" stroke to cover the range of diameters) also with a V-block that would hopefully provide the same self-leveling function but that is assuming that the tailstock shaft stays straight and doesn't rotate at all...
Something maybe along these lines:
I've never seen one of these tailstocks, I'm curious if this would be feasible in real world circumstances... Anybody with one of these units have any idea how much I could expect the shaft to move? In other words: How much will the part to rock about the rotary axis or droop/lift from the table end to the tailstock?
Material is cast iron (parts have been machined on all faces by this point) but the cutting loads are already light (40% max spindle on Haas VF#SS machines). Being able to cut both sides of these in one setup would still be a huge throughput gain even if we slowed our cycle down by 30% to accommodate a fixture that wasn't rock solid.