A helical beam coupler is used to attach the encoder shaft to the motor shaft. It replaces a 3/8"-24 nut that holds the worm on to the motor shaft. I bored and tapped one side of the coupler to take the place of the original nut.

Looking in to the front of the gearbox. The threaded shaft is where the helical coupler screws on.

Adapter plate for attaching encoder to motor gear box. The slot is to allow an allen wrench in to tighten the clamp screw on the coupler to the encoder shaft.

The counterbored holes are for #8-32 screws that go to the motor gear box. I finally used my counterbore drill bit set. It's incrediby fast to use. For a one off like this it is easier than loading a end mill in to the CNC mill and cutting a circular pocket.

The adapter is machined from 3x3x1/2" 6061-T6. I chopped sawed it to size and then drill the holes and milled the circular frame on the CNC mill. Deburring was done on the new disc sander.

Completed motor assembly and in progress controller. The PVC cap presses on to a steel mandrel.

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The cap ID is 2.375" and the only round bar I had that big was nasty hot rolled steel. I initially had problems getting a decent surface finish. But putting in a new carbide insert with a larger radius seemed to take care of the problem.

I scratched my head for a while trying to come up with a quick, easy, and cheap enclosure. I was pretty close to welding something up out of aluminum, but I decided that was too much work. I'm not in the enclosure making business after all! A trip to Menards netted me a nice Square D NEMA 3R (outdoor) main lug panel board. For less than $25. I saved the box lugs and ground bar and threw out the rest. How can you beat a $25 enclosure?!?

Inside this box will be a 56 volt DC power supply, servo controller, and some sort of controller for commanding the servo. The big transforer is a 48 VAC 4 amp beast. To the right of it is a bridge rectifier. Not shown is a ~900uF capacitor. The emergency stop switch came from a scrapped Wintech machine (thanks Steve!). At the top you can see a BCD selector. I picked this up in Taiwan for < $1. This and a PIC will be used to set the indexing angle. Or at least that is the plan for now.

A fused AC inlet module comes on Monday.