Rotary Tables

[[Jo...]]

Those of you who have rotary tables on your machines -- do you think they are useful additions? What is the approximate cost to have machine outfitted with one? My google searches have yielded little useful information.

The scenario I am imagining is having one installed on a Duramax for inspecting cylindrical parts with many features at multiple angles that would normally require us to run the parts on our Contura with the RDS head, where we can create probes at the angles we need to achieve this. Maybe it's due to my lack of knowledge about them but I could see where this could potentially cut down on cycle time by allowing me to measure multiple features with simple T or star probe systems and thus reduce the amount of time spent changing probes or articulating to new positions. I also imagine it could open up some machine capacity by allowing us to run different parts on machines without an articulating head.

I am also curious about any effects it would have on accuracy... some of the parts we make have generous tolerances, but our most critical parts regularly have us working out four and five decimal places out so we need to retain all the accuracy we can.

[[Cl...]]

We have one on our 543 O-inspect and it is absolutely invaluable.
The part is cylindrical and has very complex geometry at the tip the
needs to be measured with the CFS 180 degrees apart.

[[Ke...]]

We have one on an Accura II; I use it a lot for cylindrical parts; especially those with hard to reach internal diameters & splines.
IMO, The RT indexes pretty slowly, and there is the RT set-up time to consider, so it may be a toss up on saving any time by not indexing a RDS ❓

[[Jo...]]

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I figured time savings wouldn't be a huge advantage, if there was any at all. Increasing machine capacity would be great though, if I could utilize more machines to accomplish what only certain ones could easily do before it would be a win. Do you know roughly what your company paid for the RT?

[[Ke...]]

Unfortunately, no.
It was purchased before I started.

[[Ri...]]

ZAS + RT is the new way to go. 😃

[[Da...]]

We have a rotary on two of our DuraMax machines and two Prismos - and like you we have lots of cylindrical parts (low volume high variety) and to us it’s invaluable. If you have a RDS over a RT think about the volume you will lose when indexing as they are only small working volumes on a DuraMax. If you have any styli length you could struggle. They are very simple to program and give you loads of flexibility.

You can do more measuring tasks with less styli configurations which was important for us.

This is my experience anyhow, I’m sure others have different 😁