Rotary Tool - Epilog Homemade

[Jerry Allen]

Nice job, Pete.
There's a lot to be said for doing your own.
You certainly will not have any trouble diagnosing it if it needs repair.
Modifying it will not require you to agonize over voiding a warranty,
and you probably saved some cash too.

[Charles Rudisill]

Hello Everyone, Thanks for all of the info on this thread. I'm also interested in making a rotary attachment because the stock ones aren't suitable. I contacted Epilog and they quoted over $300 for a new motor (with a replacement ~$250, forgot exactly). Now, I think Epilog's service is excellent in general, but charging 7x or so the cost of this motor is unreasonable (I was even willing to pay 3-4x). Anyway, I also inquired at Oriental and they also said the PH256M is an OEM motor. I didn't see any 24 volt(or close)rated unipolar motors listed on their website. Is the actual maximum output current 0.21 amps..this would produce a winding resistance of 114 ohms, (didnt see anything around this in a unipolar config.) I suppose the main thing here is to avoid overheating, and since not a lot of torque is required, a higher amperage rated motor could be used? I'd appreciate any input or motor # info you've used in your applications. Thanks in advance for the help! Charles

[Pete Simmons]

Charles:

I am sure with some effort I could have found a suitable motor for $50- $80 new.

What I was not comfortable with was expirementing to find the correct connections to my very $$$$ laser. And this is from a guy who built and flew his own aircraft ( Long-Ez N85PK )

I bought the motor from Epilog plugged it in and everything works perfect.

[Doug Fennell]

Well, this should do it -

15Teeth, 16DP, 14.5 Pressure Angle

90Teeth, 16DP, 14.5 Pressure Angle

I put a bolt hole pattern in the center to make it easy to attach.

6:1 ratio

Should work fine made of Delrin (Acetol)

Can modify drawing if needed.

[Doug Fennell]

As an alternative to making your own gearset with the file I uploaded, you could also use the 16 tooth and 96 tooth gears from All Parts - pdf catalog page attached.

[Pete Simmons]

I was able to find the gears and pulleys I needed at

sdp-si.com

[Avraham Monina]

I know this is an OLD thread but wanted to know if a solution was developed, was anyone able to complete this DIY?

[Glen Monaghan]

I wasn't satisfied with using a 12 or 24V stepper with the Epilog's 48V drivers (even though Epilog uses 24V motors; many people have reported that they can get uncomfortably hot), so I had a couple (figured it wouldn't hurt to have a spare while testing) of 48V steppers custom wound.

Not an mech engineer by any definition, but I cobbled up a basic design for a chuck version with option to adapt for rollers. I have pretty much all the parts, just missing the time and prioritization to get 'er done and working... :^( I've talked with a few others who've worked on similar because I'm certain there are better ways than I've come up with, and got some helpful info, but most either don't want to get any more involved in other people's effort or have ideas of selling their versions if and when they ever get them finished and tweaked.

-Glen

[Avraham Monina]

Glen, thanks for responding. I am not a mechanical kind of person either so I dont have the skills to design one, but I can follow instructions of a built.

Avraham

[William R Butler]

Click to enlarge :

Can you give the wheel size (overall diameter including the O rings) of the Epilog rotary attachment please?

Can you confirm also the ratio of the gears and belt width and pitch?

I'd appreciate very much.
Thanks

[Kim Vellore]

The motor gets hot because the way the epilog system drives it, like old school pure DC (no PWM) and no power cutback during idle. What you could do is use a optocoupler and feed the motor signals into a microcontroller which in turn can drive a stepper motor driver, so now you can use a range of motors. You could also change the resolution by microstepping which will give you more control on your engraving resolution.

Kim

[Scott Shepherd]

Can you give the wheel size (overall diameter including the O rings) of the Epilog rotary attachment please?

Can you confirm also the ratio of the gears and belt width and pitch?

I'd appreciate very much.
Thanks

Sorry, I can't. That post you referenced was made 8 years ago. The machine is long gone so I don't have any way to measure any of it.