The Eagle Has Landed, with video.....

Or the trunnion table has been mounted on the mill. Spent the better part of a day cleaning and mounting and aligning the table properly then a lot of productive time turning the jog wheel back and forth watching the table tilt. Much more fun than watching paint dry.


Here's a short video sequence showing 1, 2, 3, and 4 axes of simultaneous movement. Many machines are really 3.5 axis which means the X, Y, and Z axes can move or the 4th axis can move, but not all at the same time. This machine is a full 4 axis machine. The last move shows the X, Y, Z, and U axis in a synchronized movement.




This added capability enables making complicated and high tolerance parts with a minimal amount of re-clamping operations but is also possible to quickly damage the part, tooling, and machine with any incorrectly programmed move.

The next steps this week are to get the suspension spider fixture plate mounted and machined then make a sample part. I'll tackle this part first as it is pretty simple compared to the engine castings.

Chris