Stepper Motor Mount for Harbor Freight Rotary Table

This is a motor mount intended to facilitate using a cheap Harbor Freight rotary table on a CNC machine. I used wood to provide a mounting surface for a stepper motor a set distance away from the existing drive shaft. This allows me to couple to and drive the existing rotary table shaft with a stepper motor. I did have to turn down the rotary table drive shaft with my lathe to fit the flexible coupling I had on hand. I also added a thrust bearing under the drive shaft collar to reduce friction.

I intended to cast the final mount out of aluminum but so far the wood version has performed well for the few times I have used it. I just recently had the thought that it could also be 3d printed. Even if I cast it from aluminum I might 3d Print the pattern so I can make nice draft angles on the pattern for sand casting.

The rotary table I used was the 3" ROTARY TABLE AND CLAMPING KIT - 98077 but it looks like it has been discontinued by Harbor Freight.

Attachment 6598
Attachment 6599 Attachment 6600

Here are pictures of the rotary table mounted to my milling machine in a toolmakers vice which is clamped to the mill table. I added a pillow block on the cantilevered end of the work piece because I was getting too much deflection.

Attachment 6601 Attachment 6602

Below is a video of the first item I made using the stepper motor mount with the rotary table. It is a cylindrical lithophane made from a chunk of PVC pipe. The CNC workflow is as follows: Flat G-Code was first generated by Dmap2gcode then the flat g-code was sent through G-Code Ripper to map the flat g-code to the rotary axis.

When the lithophanes are back-lit (with a candle in this case) the image becomes clear.
https://youtu.be/ShuGBpYdFtk

Thanks scorch! We've added your Stepper Motor Mount to our CNC category, as well as to your builder page: scorch's Homemade Tools. Your receipt:

<div id="blocks"> <div class="block b1 pngfix"> <div class="bimg"> <div> <a href="http://www.homemadetools.net/stepper-motor-mount"><img src="http://www.homemadetools.net/uploads/136674/stepper-motor-mount.jpeg" /></a></div> </div> <div class="head pngfix"></div> <div class="left pngfix"></div> <div class="right pngfix"></div> <div class="blockover b1 pngfix"> <div class="title"> <a href="http://www.homemadetools.net/stepper-motor-mount">Stepper Motor Mount</a> <span> by <a href="/builder/scorch">scorch</a></span> </div> <div class="tags">tags: <a href="http://www.homemadetools.net/tag/mount">mount</a>, <a href="http://www.homemadetools.net/tag/motor">motor</a>, <a href="http://www.homemadetools.net/tag/rotary-table">rotary table</a></div> </div> </div> </div>