your ideas on a pipe profiling machine

[HiltonSteve]

MC,

I have just been thinking about what you are trying to do and I think that you could do it with a fairly simple design.....

What I am thinking is that you will only need 3 directions of movement, Rotary (A) to spin the pipe, Linear (X) to move along the pipe and Vertical (Z) to plunge the cutter. You could even do away with the Z axis being controlled by steppers and do it manually seeing as you are only cutting through pipe, just a thought.

With a max pipe dia of 8" then why not limit the travel on the X axis (along the pipe) to something similar, maybe 10"-12" will do. Moving along the pipe to cut various other holes could be done with a second linear move and clamp system that could be positioned manually anywhere along a 5ft pipe.

Your design then could consist of a fairly small X axis which could be done with a ballscrew as you will only need a small amount of travel. Same goes for the Z axis (if you go for stepper control), use a manual move and clamp method to get it close to the pipe surface depending on the pipe dia and then you will only have a small distance to go to plunge through the pipe.

Pipe would be held at one end by a chuck which is controlled by a stepper motor for rotation and by a simple 3 roller type system at the other, 2 at the bottom which again have a manual height adjustment for various dia pipe and one roller at the top to hold it on place.

Hope that makes sense, trying to dip a hobnob in my tea at the same time as typing this is a bit distracting.

Have a look at the photo below then read my post again, may make a bit more sense!