Re: 5-Axis help

A 5 axis machine can be done I believe there are EMC files for 5 axis
setup in the files section here.

If you want to mill soft stuff you can probably build a setup
otherwise you really need to find some good industrial junk like a
robot or the rotating axis get expensive to build. 2 ideas here

You may be able to buy 2 universal mount rotary tables and power
them. Bolted together with a rotozip or small rotary tool mounted
would give you an articulated head. Not a great one but possible.
Example harbor freight has these small 4-inch tables at $99. Mount
one horizontal and the other vertical back to back and you have a
joint.

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/Displayitem.taf?itemnumber=47052


You could forget the powered rotary axis and use two manual index
plates. To do this you have to mill the part in sections then stop
and reset the tool head. This could be treated just as any other tool
change operation. Also a clever person could slice the 3-D model into
sections of G-cod, not as slick but you could then use standard 3-d
cam software to generate each section and stitch the file together
with tool changes. Each time you change the head angle you select the
tool number with the proper offsets. The rest of the moves are 3
dimensional as long as the tool can reach I would guess.

Electronics are no big deal several programs will drive more than
one port so you just wire more drivers up if you use all 5 axis.

Come to think of it if you setup several canned program steps the
4th and 5th axis could simply be treated as a tool changer cycle, or
PLC handshake type interface.

Just ideas

Brian
BSP