That looks possible with 3 axis. Is the spindle ever moving in the x direction?
Yeah that should just be 3 axis. I believe there are two or three different people that have set that up in slightly different ways, they put there creations on thingiverse.
In order for Fusion 360 to work with a 5 axis machine you will have to find a post processor that is already is setup for 5 axis or edit the post processor to understand the kinematics of your particular machine.
I assume you would want to use Fusion. It seems like the best option out there.
Has anyone considering a 5-axis MPCNC looked at the Arduino Mega version of GRBL that supports 5-axis?
This is kinda what I was thinking. The blue part is supposed to get gt2 teeth, 12mm wide. Two bearings go inside, opposing each other, and are held by the cap. The motor cap isn’t in these pics. I’m planning on putting 3 6/32s through the millde shaft and glueing the backplate. I placed the splice for the cap within the bearing, so it won’t need to be glued for strength.
The bearings came in but are the wrong size.
Not visible here are tension spacers. So I printed one.
I’m probably just going to redraw this to fit the bearings I was sent. It was just a couple hours so no big loss. This is why I didn’t want to draw much without parts in hand lol
I’m going to get some sleep first, then maybe take a go at it tonight.
Oh, found some really good lazy Susan bearings. Two 9" bearings preloaded should be pretty stable. probably the most expensive part on this build at 7 bucks a piece.
The only reason I’ve not been wanting to do a laydown 4th axis is you need to have a drop table.
But honestly with this build it might make sense to put both 4th and 5th on the table. You could use the machines full rigidity like that. It’s definitely something to try.
Some ideas I wanted to try was I wanted to build a drop table you can adjust with a crank, and lock it into place.
One thing I haven’t worked out, is that my 4th axis is at 45 degrees, not zero. That’s actually good for the machine because you get a bit more room to swing it in the corners but not so good for programming. 
Wheel hub assemblies from a car might work for axis bearings. They would be too heavy to mount on the head, but would work fine on the table.
How does that work?
> Wheel hub assemblies from a car might work for axis bearings.
Have you ever tried turning one by hand? Wheel hub assemblies from a car won’t work, unless you plan on using a really powerful stepper motor.
This is where I got the idea. It seems to work pretty well. You could mount 608ZZ bearings around the edge of the turntable to support more weight.
https://makezine.com/projects/guide-to-3d-printing-2014/heavy-duty-turntable/The article says “mount a high-torque rotisserie motor” to turn it. If you have a front-wheel drive car, jack up the back end and rotate one of the rear wheels by hand and you’ll see why the article says “high-torque”. You’d need a really big stepper motor to drive it.
I was actually wondering the same thing. I just recently put something similar to these on a small trailer I was rebuilding: https://www.amazon.com/CE-Smith-13110-Replacement-Accessories/dp/B003NTM1C0/
They spin very freely by hand, especially before you pack them with thick wheel bearing grease, and at the loads we’d be talking for something like this, I’m sure you could get away with a light weight grease like white lithium. They’re 1" inner diameter too, which could potentially work out well for people using 1" SS tubing in their build (depending on the overall design of course).
It does seem to me like you’d be better off doing both the 4th and 5th axis on the table, that’s how the majority of large industrial 5-axis machines I’ve seen do it. But doing it that way does mean that the 4th axis has to be able to rotate (and accurately position/hold) the entire work piece and the 5th axis rotary table, which might start pushing the requisite motors and drivers into a range outside the usual MPCNC build.
Lazy Susan bearings still have my interest. The better ones support a few hundred pounds, turn with little effort, have large diameters which will increase stability, and are common and cheap.
I have most of the 4th axis working, except I don’t think nema 17 motors have enough torque to hold this thing strait during cutting. I have to see what I can get in a geared stepper. Speed should not really be a problem here.
I’ve seen smaller geared motors, but I haven’t started to compare torque or detent holding specs. If I can get it to hold, I’ll make a few cuts with it strait up and down. If that works, I’ll add an endstop. If all goes well, I’ll go for the last axis.
I was hoping to find those “puck” style steppers, and see what kind of specs are on those. Anyone know of a source?
I have an idea. If this ends up not having enough power on the 4th axis mounted on the z, maybe I can mount a camera on it, and still make the rotary table, and use it as a 3d scanner.
I’ve seen you can take a lot of photos and stitch them together to get a 3d image. Just wondering if cnc’ers would find something like that useful.