Hobbing on horizontal mill

There is a old post on here by John Stevenson where he put some electric motors and sensors on a manual horizontal mill

Can anyone tell me how to duplicate this

I can't recall the post, but I imagine it would be with a few steppers and a rotary table assembly.

Something like this for small gears, with a tailstock, to hold the blank, driven by a stepper and an ardiuino to move to the next tooth:

https://www.shars.com/5c-spin-index-fixture

(true craftspeople might also include a lock for each indexing activity, to secure the milling activity - perhaps pneumatic?)

And something else to traverse the table? perhaps another (stepper or conventional) motor with two limit switches?

Probably also some coolant.

Doesn't seem like rocket surgery.

Edited By jann west on 23/11/2022 17:48:13

Edited By jann west on 23/11/2022 17:50:41

IIRC, and its been a few years....

The spindle had a pulse generator on it, which was fed into a box of electronics.

That electronics did pulse dividing, which generated the step signal to drive a stepper motor which was attached to the input shaft of a sodding big dividing head.

It was a Victoria universal horizontal - so the table could be swivelled to match the hob angle I think.

There are pictures somewhere, either here or over on the homeshop machinist bbs

Dave

This comes up every now and again on here and on the HSM forum but can be buried in threads with obscure titles. There isn't a simple plug and play system nor even a simple Arduino/pi/other system for sale like the electronic leadscrew options. John initially had a pure TTL logic chip solution but later converted to a computer based system somebody developed for him, which as far as I know has not been made commercially available.
However a couple of people on here I think have got it sorted, but they are advanced electronics tinkerers.

Dividing head

Box of tricks

Head angled for helical gears

Edited By JasonB on 23/11/2022 18:43:45

MEW issue numbers referenced here:

https://www.model-engineer.co.uk/forums/postings.asp?th=75580

Posted by Bazyle 23/11/2022 18:41:45

This comes up every now and again on here and on the HSM forum but can be buried in
threads with obscure titles.

There isn't a simple plug and play system nor even a simple
Arduino/pi/other system for sale like the electronic leadscrew options.

John initially
had a pure TTL logic chip solution but later converted to a computer based system
somebody developed for him, which as far as I know has not been made
commercially available.
However a couple of people on here I think have got it sorted, but they
are advanced electronics tinkerers.

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This part is not true

"There isn't a simple plug and play system nor even a simple
Arduino/pi/other system for sale like the electronic leadscrew options"

Richard Bartlett designed and made the "Compucut Syncron" system
which i have ,it did not have the shortcomings of the published
circuit that was in MEW 108 but is a system that actually works
properly.
As far as i know the system is still available ,when i spoke to
Richard a few years ago he still had about 10 or 12 pcb
boards.
You still have to make up the head and work holding spindle to
suit the machine application ,was in Mew 193 also some
photo's in album gears.

John

I copied John P's set up using my own design of dividing head and a smaller, vertical milling machine. It works very well. Photo in my Album. I know nothing about the electronics unit bought from Richard Bartlett some years ago except how to make use of it. Thank yoy John.