Eppinger Entering the Rotary Table Market

Eppinger, a toolholder manufacturer, is entering a new market by presenting a range of rotary tables. The company made its first display at EMO Hannover earlier this year. The new rotary tables are available with rotary plate sizes ranging from 160 to 320 mm and are suitable for both initial installation and retrofitting of vertical and horizontal milling machines.

Eppinger products are provided in the United States by Exsys Tool.

“We have used more than 30 rotary tables of different brands at our production sites for many years,” says managing director Uwe Eppinger.  “That’s why we are well aware of the pros and cons of installation, flexible  application, maintenance costs and decreasing accuracy.”

Although the existing market is already highly competitive, Eppinger company is venturing into this segment now. “Our rotary tables differ significantly from existing solutions,” says Mr. Eppinger. “They have been used for some time in our own manufacturing, where they gradually replaced the third-party products.”

“We were not always satisfied with the products that previously existed on the market,” he continues. “The reason is that for our own production of tools, wheel gears and gear units, we need rotary tables that can be quickly and precisely positioned, tables which are extremely compact and suitable for fine grinding as well as for rough milling operations. In addition, they should be easily integrated into existing vertical and horizontal machining centers and used there in a flexible way. Since we could not find suitable rotary tables on the market for our specific requirements in this specific combination, we developed them ourselves.”

A distinguishing feature of Eppinger’s rotary tables is the pre-loaded, backlash-free twin-engine drive which is said to enable quick indexing without clamping. An integrated angle sensor on the rotary plate keeps positioning accuracy high, even with changing loads, the company says. Although this principle is already used for larger rotary tables, Eppinger says it found a way to implement it in rotary tables with plate sizes under 320 mm in diameter. Although the angle measuring system integrated into the housing measures the angle directly on the rotary plate and compensates for mechanical interferences, the pre-loaded drive makes it possible to set up a high control loop gain, the company explains. Only in this way is it possible to bring bidirectional positioning into the angular seconds range of precision.