WWGOA's George Vondriska Demos the ShopBot Rotary Indexer

The 3" Rotary Indexer is just one of the many accessories ShopBot has available to use with our CNC machines. We provided one to WWGOA's George Vondriska to use with his ShopBot Desktop CNC and see what it adds to the CNC's capabilities.
A rotary indexer allows you to cut full 3-dimensional objects on your ShopBot CNC. Like a lathe, it provides a 4th rotary axis for turning a part, but instead of spinning at high speeds, it provides precise “indexed” control over rotation.
Take a look at how George uses it with his ShopBot Desktop creating both symmetrical and asymmetrical projects.

[@Woodcademy]

Just cut my first leg on the Rotary. It is great fun!

[@davidkenagy8706]

Some information missing (I might find this on ShopBot's site, but while I'm here:
- One can assume that it can be added to CNCs by other companies, but that wasn't actually said. If it is possible, then the required specs are...?
- As with any lathe, there is a diameter limit. Does 3" refer to the height of the unit? Max diameter? What is that limit?
- Do common CAD/CAM software products interface with this (especially Vectric)?
- Users will not only have to define X,Y and Z (as with any CNC) but also ensure the ShopBot remains precisely oriented along that X-axis. How much deviation before project quality is noticeably different?
Knowing nothing about WWGOA, I assume they're impartial advocates for woodworking, so this needs a comment about alternative systems to the ShopBOT (maybe aspects in which ShopBOT excels, but also its limits). This might actually be a ShopBot-sponsored video, but even so, they have to know that buyers want to compare before investing. Great companies address that directly.

[@shopbottools]

Hi David, the ShopBot Rotary Indexer is designed to work with ShopBot CNC machines and included software. For any additional info, please contact ShopBot tech support at 888-680-4466 or email [e-mail]. Thank you for checking out this video. You should check out WWGOA (Woodworkers Guild of America) at wwgoa.com. They are a great resource for woodworkers of all levels.

[@sbowen4]

The drive stepper motor is a 0.9 deg/step motor run through a 3:1 gear reduction driven by a stepper driver that is capable of 1/10 microstepping -- so the motor steps per degree work out to 33.33. The motor driver can handle between 15 and 50VDC. Any machine setup that is able to drive a stepper motor could be used to control this rotary indexer.
3" refers to the suggested diameter limit. It is possible to get slightly larger pieces in the machine but the strength of the drive motor really sets the limit for what you want to try to turn on this setup.
I use vectric software exclusively to program my indexer. VCarve (or any of their products with rotary tool options) can take in .stl files and output rotary cut files.
Setting up your headstock and tailstock so that the turning axis is parallel to both your X and Y axes is critical to getting good quality cuts. Before loading any material into your indexer it is a good idea to chuck up a V-Bit in the headstock and use the machine to confirm that the tip of the V Bit in the headstock is perfectly aligned with the tip of the live center in the tailstock. 3D rotary is very forgiving as far as the appearance of a part cut with poor alignment on the indexer -- but if the accuracy of the size of your part is critical, you'll need to make sure that your setup is dialed in.
There are a lot of options for small size rotary indexers for CNC -- and a lot of really affordable ones exactly in this size range. Honestly, there is not much to mechanically differentiate this indexer from any of the cheaper ones you can find on amazon. The main advantage of buying this indexer if you're a ShopBot owner is that the engineering team at ShopBot designed this device and it is manufactured by ShopBot -- meaning that the customer support team at ShopBot is most familiar with this setup and can provide training and help more quickly. I do not think that owners of other CNC equipment would benefit from purchasing this indexer instead of other similar options.