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Rotary Table question
- Thread starter Tomc938
- Start date
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I'm going to venture a guess that it's something like this then?
Skywatcher Celestron & iOptron Pier Adapter
The new Altair Astro CNC machined aluminium pier adapter is used to secure the following Equatorial mounts to your Altair SkyShed Pier or home made
As far as I know, pier adapters are outdoor mounts. The pier is aligned and stays in place permanently. They are usually a large heavy concrete base with a steel adapter for the telescope to minimize vibration.
However, brake rotor composition is designed to be slightly porous for high friction and consequently it rusts very easily. I dunno about using it for a Pier mount....... Perhaps if it's painted.
Just the same, I'd love to see the plans.
Does surface A have to fit inside a mating surface ID? As others have said, end milling around the perimeter might not result in a finish you are happy with & be a bit finicky trying to hit a target dimension with control, depending on your equipment & experience. A turned finish would be better & more controlled. But looks like maybe you are working with what you have. Also I haven't turned an auto part like this, maybe others more familiar can chime in. If its unfinished as is, it might have some delightful casting crusty skin to get through.
Brake rotors can be turned. In fact it used to be standard practice. Today, everyone just replaces them.
To be fair, that is usually on the flat ground surfaces of the plate, but you shouldn't have any trouble with the hub section either.
I was just browsing youtube videos and found one by Tubal Cain done about 8 years ago. Seems he's had the same idea for centering the rotary table except he does it in two steps rather than with one longer tool like mine.
Tomc938
Ultra Member
Thanks Craig!
Tomc938
Ultra Member
Yes, this is the idea. Apparently the telescope itself sits within a small "shed" so it will not be sitting out in the rain. I woudl assume a regular oiling will be part of the routine. My friend is a retired millwright, so stuff like this is right up his alley.I'm going to venture a guess that it's something like this then?
Skywatcher Celestron & iOptron Pier Adapter
The new Altair Astro CNC machined aluminium pier adapter is used to secure the following Equatorial mounts to your Altair SkyShed Pier or home madewww.altairastro.com
I am nothing if not consistent. Crap I hate YouTube. I am just too old to waste that much time. I bailed about a minute in.
I have the coaxial indicator he used in his next video. No, I didn't watch that one either. The subject was sufficient to know what he did. That's how I used to do such things on my drill press and mill/drill before I got the knee mill last year.
But I had no DRO back then, and I have not mounted my rotary table yet since I installed the DRO. So this short exchange is a good place to discuss a better way to do it with my new DRO. Today, I would probably use my digital ball edge finder and DRO divide by two function on an MT3 Stub of almost any kind in the center taper of my rotary table. The ball edge finder eliminates any concerns about the top taper or profile on the MT3 stub. I prefer this kind of approach over grabbing the stub in the mill spindle because I can put my rotary table where ever I want it, bolt it down perfectly in the table slots, and not worry about it moving when I do. Then instead of centering the rotary table on the spindle, I'll center the spindle/mill on the rotary table using the DRO.
A nice advantage of my DRO is that it remembers zero even through a power outage. I can shut it down overnight and pickup where I left off a week later.
I think I could even leave the rotary table setup on the mill table for a long extended period of time and do other jobs on the vise because the DRO has multiple saved zeros. I dunno about that one till I try it though.
Ya, the DRO is changing my life.
Like always, the required precision of the job dictates the precision of the setup. It's hard for me to imagine a rotary table job that requires more precision than an MT stub, edgefinder, and DRO divide by 2 function though. But I'd bet good money that one exists.
@Tomc938 & @jcdammeyer
Very cool to have his own little observatory. A Farmer down the road from me had a small rotating dome. I never saw any sign that he used it so I had planned to stop by and ask if he was interested in selling it. But the heat from a house fire took the fiberglass dome with it and that was that.
What kind of shed does he have? Flip roof, rotating dome, rolling shed?
Cool to read in that article that the pier mount is the "standard Meade LX200" mount. That's what my big telescope is. It's a little 8 inch though. LOL!
I keep it setup in the barn. Easy to carry it in and out to the open yard right on the tripod.
Still have not seen any aliens..... LOL!
I never had the sound up and was watching TV with my wife while I dragged the pointer through the video to see what he was doing. I also have ad blocker so I am never bothered by that crap. I probably should have said that what he took a half hour to describe using two different pieces of metal I did in what: 3 photos and a bit of text?
In fact my alignment tool was done on my Gingery Lathe using the MT2 taper feature on my ELS and turned between centers. About the only thing that might be wrong with it is if it's dropped and ends up with a slight bend. I've never indicated it to see if it's exact although now that I have my fancy indicator connected to LinuxCNC I can ask it to find the center of a round piece and it will do that automatically for me.
John
Tomc938
Ultra Member
My friend ran across a website that suggested this exact brand and part number for the modification.
If course if it does end up too thin, not my fault!
Picture below.
Speaking of rotary tables etc. I was passing a link to one of my youtube videos to a friend and noticed a 12 year old one (very fuzzy video). I was drilling all the mounting holes and counter sinks etc. for the CNC router motor mounts.
In this case my ELS Z axis was connected to the small motor on the tiny rotary table. I changed the jog increment to issue the number of steps required to turn 90 degrees. So each tap of the button moved me to the next drill point. The quill was moved by human power.
In this case my ELS Z axis was connected to the small motor on the tiny rotary table. I changed the jog increment to issue the number of steps required to turn 90 degrees. So each tap of the button moved me to the next drill point. The quill was moved by human power.