Moore vs Walter Rotary Table

Question for you all:

I have about $1500 and I need a good rotary table for our university's engineering manufacturing lab. I want a basic horizontal + vertical, perhaps with a dividing plate(s) if I can find that.

My personal philosophy is to buy nice tools for our students. So do I buy an 11" Moore, a 12" Walter, or something else entirely -- like a SIP?

I can get any of the above for about $1500 or less. I'm less concerned about price and more concerned about accuracy, rigidity, Z-height, etc.

I'm leaning towards Moore.

Condition is more important than brand in general, with type of "readout" an important ease-of-use consideration.

I've never used either SIP or Moore tables myself, and only used a Walter a couple of times. On the other hand, I've used Eimeldingen, Knight, and M&M Precision tables thousands of times, all three of those brands have been completely satisfactory.

My first choice of "readout" would be a glass circle. E Leitz would be my top choice, Heidenhain runner up. In both of these, the circle is attached to the platen, which isolates the measurement from backlash in the worm.

The British OMT rotary tables use a British glass circle -- IIRC Hilger and Watts were deeply involved.

Readout lamps for these glass circle system can be hard to track down, but are easy to change. Optical encoders today use LEDs, but the older systems use incandescent lamps that are real pains to replace and align.

My second choice of readouts would be an Inductosyn system, simply because it doesn't need a scale lamp. The Inductosyn system was developed by Farrand in the U S, and the technology was licensed to Heidenhain and Olivetti in Europe, Mitsubishi (IURC) in Japan, and a few machine-tool builders.

Vernier scales are almost always on the worm shaft, and therefore blind to backlash between the worm and wormwheel.

Finally, if you can get by with discrete steps in position, don't be afraid of a face-gear "indexer" such as AA Gauge's Ultradex and Moore's 1440 Indexer. The typical Ultradex moves in 1, 1/2, or 1/4 degree increments, with precision of 1 arcsecond or better. The Moore 1440 Indexer moves in 1/4 degree increments with precision of 1/10 arcsecond.

Hey thanks so much for your thoughts, you know what you're talking about!

When you say a glass circle, do you mean something like this or this? I don't think I've ever actually seen a Leitz rotary table, just their optical dividing head. Does that operate on the same glass circle kind of readout?

As far as an inductosyn table... I'm not totally sure what to look for?

Thanks for your help!