INTRODUCTION TO ROTARY TABLE SYSTEMS

Thisbookletcontainsanoverviewtothevaryingdesigns ofrotarytableunitsavailabletoday. ____________________ Anunbiasedandgeneraldescriptionofthe drivingmechanismsandtheirbenefitsandfailurestoindividualapplications

AGUIDE&SUMMARYINCHOOSINGAROTARYORROTARY TILTINGDEVICE

INTRODUCTION We are pleased to provide a break down of a number of drive systems currently available within the market place in the design, manufacture and use of rotary table devices. There are several different systems available as can be seen below, all of which have benefits in different types of use with corresponding deficits and limitations in use. We have attempted to highlight as many as possible in this short manual to assist with the making of the correct purchasing decision for you. This document is prepared to assist in the selection of the correct type of rotary or rotary tilting device for various types of usage. 1) 2) 3) 4) Conventional Worm & Wheel device Spiroid gear system Ballscrew driven rotary table Direct Drive rotary tables

This document is written with the knowledge and experience of the supply, sale and service of devices with all these integral operational styles and within a large array of industries and component sizes and types from 1kg to 100,000kg and 70mm to 5,000mm in diameter covering more than a 40 year period. It is also written with as little bias as possible to any manufacturer or style or type of device so that the reader can make their own informed judgement. There is a wide range of products available within the market place from a large and varying number of manufacturers. Generally all the manufacturers have what can be described as a reasonable product and range, some of whom have used their experiences and customer feedback to develop the product further on an ongoing basis. We are not looking here to promote and denigrate any one or more individual manufacturer, just to highlight the differing techniques used within the products to maximise certain areas of performance. We have chosen also to detail the down side to each type of design from our own knowledge and experience, again this is not pointed in favour of, or against any manufacturer. Should you wish to discuss your application with the writer there is an email address at the end of this section, advice is free and without any obligation whatsoever. sales@cncrotary.com

CONVENTIONAL WORM & WHEEL SYSTEMS The CNC rotary table and subsequently the CNC rotary tilting table were developed around the original manual table technology using the standard layout of a worm and wheel. The worm and wheel hardening process was increased to take account of the potential added wear characteristics from the higher speed and acceleration and deceleration associated with the higher speeds and the automated process. The hardness levels were calculated through major testing programmes and the standard hardness range of the general worm and wheels used in the Worldwide manufacture is between 45 and 60 Rockwell dependent on the manufacturer. Most manufacturers offer this type of device, some claiming special materials, however the benefits claimed are not as extensive in practice. The Japanese manufacturers generally have tables with harder worms and wheels than European or American manufacturers and these seem to be more robust under heavier use. The standard worm and wheel process is considered to be the common solution to the drive requirements on most rotary tables currently in manufacture today, simply due to historic design and the general success of the format. The standard worm and wheel system provides a good level of accuracy for the positioning of the device and general accuracies on smaller tables from say 100mm to 500mm id around +/- 20 seconds of arc and most manufacturers quote this sort of accuracy, one or two in special devices may be slightly worse than this. When we move to the tilting axis however the accuracy generally deteriorates considerably to as much as 3 times or more than the accuracy of the rotary axis, this is due to the additional loading on the gear system when driven against a load and when the mechanics are stressing the gear set, when lowering in a tilt move. To improve accuracy direct axis measurement is used as an option, this can provide its own problems with these devices due to the mechanical wear characteristics of the gear type. EXAMPLE - NIKKEN WORM When the gears wear or are damaged the position window required by the encoder can not always be maintained under the mechanical loads and the combination of the motor attempting to keep the mechanics within the position window has the effect of shutting the machine down with an axis

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position error. It is therefore an ongoing maintenance issue to keep these devices with this electrical configuration running during production type set ups. The tilt or swivel axis point can make a considerable difference to the actual achieved accuracy. Some products tilt on centre line, other hinge and some are just off centre. Tilting off centre can increase the errors if measured from the tilting point as angular errors are physically greater the further from the axis point and the strain on the gear set increased. In operation the worm and wheel provides good service over a long period of time, the main problems come with collision damage because only a small amount of gear is in contact with the worm at any one time and therefore damage is local to the area of the wheel in contact at the time of the collision. The softer the wheel, the greater the amount of potential damage, the harder the wheel or shaft there is a potential for the shaft to break or teeth to shear from the worm wheel. Both these phenomena are a known and accepted problem. Many customers have had to take the steps of using good areas of the wheel until these areas are no longer usable, particularly a problem with tilting axes where the wheels are used and rotated 180 degrees and used again. These problems are experienced in uses where the same components are produced on an ongoing basis and less problematical for general subcontract uses. When the tables exceed around 500mm diameter, particularly in the case of the European manufacturers, the accuracies quoted for the worm and wheel set tend to improve as the gear sets are larger which make the surface contact greater and maintaining the higher quoted accuracy becomes possible. This accuracy is maintained over a much longer period of time due to the physical size and strength of the mechanical gearing. The accuracy will improve generally to +/- 15 seconds, however on the larger diameters it is normal to expect that direct axis measurement will be used for position, as angular errors, even small ones can become quite sizeable at 500 or 1000mm radii for example.

SPIROID WORM GEAR

The Spiral worm gear was developed for use in rotary devices to improve the wear characteristics already discovered in the conventional worm and wheel system The spiroid gear is based on the rear axle of a car (the Hypoid gear) where the gear shaft runs across the face of the spiral formed wheel thereby providing up to 6 times more gear contact than the conventional system. Due to the gear contact a higher moving torque is required to position the table and this should be considered when selecting suitable servo motors.

EXAMPLE OF SPIROID GEAR SET FACE GEAR CONTACT

This also means that any collision damage is minimised by the dispersion of the contact across a larger area of gear thereby inflicting less of a fatal blow to areas of the shaft or worm gear. There was a further advantage provided by this type of design and this was that by default all the outside edge face of the wormwheel were completely free to make available a large diameter area on which to utilise a clamping or braking system, this gives the result of at least a 10 times improvement on the braking force in this type of device. Like all good designs there are downfalls, In this case it is the generation of accuracy of the system. It was far more difficult to produce the 20 seconds of arc that was generated by the conventional system and the manufacturing process needs an amount of gear lapping after manufacture to bring the gears to the required level.

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Two further problems were that this additional manufacturing process added cost to the device and that there was a patent on the gear system meaning limited sources of manufacture. In special cases where a large bore table was required, the spiroid gear system has an additional problem, as the gear going across the face means there is limited room to open the centre bore. The hardness of gear set was sufficient at 55 Rockwell to ensure the wear characteristics were good and long life can be expected without any signs of backlash or damage manifesting themselves on tables up to 400mm or thereabouts. On tables larger than that of around 1000mm or so where a table is used continually, there are some issues with the generation of heat from the gear set due to the amount of metal contact with the toothed gear. Long term accuracy and repeatability of this system is good, direct axis measurement is recommended on tables over 400mm diameter and all tilting devices over 250mm. Manufacturers of tables with this type of gear are SPIRSIN (tables to 1500mm) and ZEATZ (tables to 300mm).

RECIRCULATING BALLSCREW DRIVEN TABLES The recirculating ball drive rotary table was originally designed to resolve accuracy issues with rotary transfer machines, where accuracy and repeatability were vital in part production and the indexing device was used to position at the same point over and over again The problem comes with localised wear as already mentioned within an earlier section, where repeatability becomes more of a problem for customers requiring large batch manufacture, or repeatability on a range of component parts. A large number of machine tool axes are driven using ballscrew method and it is known that this method of positioning is fast, rigid and highly accurate, in addition it will function for a long period of time without the need for maintenance or attention. It is therefore only logical to use this process in a rotary application and format to achieve similar performance within rotary devices.

EXAMPLE OF BALLSCREW SYSTEM The system allows for high precision moves and repeatability of moves without the loss of accuracy or localised wear characteristics.

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The age old problem of damage to worm and wheel system is minimised as the ballscrew assembly has at least 85% of the balls in contact with the spindle at any time which allows the shock to be dissipated throughout the device therefore minimising any actual damage. This system is ideal for replacement to a direct axis measurement project as the inherent accuracy is some 4x better than a conventional rotary axis worm and wheel system, thereby negating the need for expensive encoders and the problematical description earlier of the tussle between the mechanical and measuring elements. The system requires a higher input torque to drive the table because of the 85% contact but the mechanical ball system can work as a brake in most cases also negating the need for pneumatic or hydraulic supplies together with the associated valves and their failings. The system is manufactured in a modular block build system which allows the motor positions to be as varied as required by the installation as a whole, so there are no real issues with guarding, cable routing or other out of the box issues. The down side to this flexibility is that they are not off the shelf items and are manufactured to order, taking several months. They are also not a device to be used for heavy slab milling as this is not putting the additional cost of the system to its best use. This device is a patented system manufactured exclusively by Detlev Hofmann in Germany. The modular block size range 80mm to 320mm and due to the ball drive this system allows the largest of all centre bore sizes compared to the overall frame size. It is therefore easy to fit any special chucking arrangements such as Pallet systems 3R or Erowa for example.

DIRECT DRIVE ROTARY TABLES The newest technology to find its way into the rotary table arena is the Direct Drive rotary table system. These devices are being introduced by many of the existing rotary table manufacturers and this does away completely with the mechanical gearing, no worms and wheels, spiral gears or ballscrew transmission here. Drive for the table comes directly from the electromagnetic force of the motor. In these designs the motors mount directly over the spindle, this has the major benefit of removing the age old issue of motor positions on CNC tables, which particularly with the old DC servo motors and the relevant length of these, caused issues with the ever reducing space within the target machine guarding.

HOFMANN DIRECT DRIVE ROTARY TABLE

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You will see from the picture how compact this type of device is, they can be constructed not only as rotary devices but also in rotary and tilting format In the tilting arrangement care has to be taken to the centre height of the device as it needs to be higher than a conventional system to allow clearance of the motor below the table when moving through the horizontal position (vertical axis). These devices allow high speed acceleration and positioning, however for the positional accuracy a separate encoder is required, this may inhibit the working bore (centre hole) of the table subject to the encoder selected. These devices have no mechanical wear other than the bearings and the seals, the down side to the device is that the integration to the machine is a little more complex and if motor problems are experienced it is not quite as easy to obtain the motor and fit it as a conventionally driven device. The cost of the motor is a major additional factor however there are no worm and wheel costs, so this is the major off set to the original product cost. These products are a little new to be fully tested and problems that are not yet being experienced may come to the fore. To date however we can provide only good feedback from clients.

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