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Dropped $600 on a used 5-axis trunnion table and it was a complete dud
I bought a beat up 5-axis trunnion table off Facebook Marketplace for my Haas VF-2 to try and land some complex aerospace work. The thing had crashed so hard the C-axis bearings were shot and it wobbled like a washing machine on spin cycle. Anyone else get burned buying used rotary gear sight unseen?
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wyattmitchell11d ago
I'd ask how much play is actually in the bearings. I've messed with used rotary tables before and sometimes a little bit of wobble is just from loose preload, not a total bearing failure. If you pull the cover off and check the axial and radial clearance with a dial indicator, you might find it's just a few thou from a crash or normal wear. Six hundred bucks for a trunnion table is suspiciously cheap, your mileage may vary but I've seen worse machines brought back with new bearings for another couple hundred. Before you write it off as a total loss, I'd check the actual runout under no load and see if the taper in the C-axis is still concentric. If the housing isn't cracked or the worm gear stripped, you might just need a bearing kit and a day of careful shimming.
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