Poking around for BT30 stuff and came across this complete spindle and actuator. Good comp.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/BT-30-8-000-RPM-SPINDLE-with-AIR-CYLINDER-ASSEMBLY-/300743758615?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4605b99317

DWalsh: caution about posting drawings . . . the teacher has a big RED pencil  . . .  a corner chair with dunce cap . . .  and possibly a wooden ruler  . .  and a paddle 

Steve,
 The cylinder is 45mm OD. I took a couple of pics so you could see the setup closer, springs are not that strong and I managed to push them down fairly easily with the palm of my hand.
Hood

Steve,

Just for your amusement, here is the current state of my ATC

Curiosity, are you going to buy the mill?

DWalsh: caution about posting drawings . . . the teacher has a big RED pencil  . . .  a corner chair with dunce cap . . .  and possibly a wooden ruler  . .  and a paddle  

Steve,

Just for your amusement, here is the current state of my ATC - I finally got some time to work on it yesterday.  It's mounted on the machine, and, operating it manually, it appears to work perfectly - the forks slide on and off the tools very nicely, and the tools slip in and out of the spindle effortlessly.  I hope in the next few days to get the top plate of the housing done, which will let me mount the geneva motor, and see how that all works under power.  Then, it's just a matter of mounting the two air cylinders - one long one to swing the ATC to the spindle, and back to the park position behind the table, and the second to push the carousel down for ejecting tools from the spindle.  I'll also need to re-make my Y/Z way cover, to make it narrower so the ATC can get back as far as possible when parked, and re-make my coolant "collar", which right now mounts to the bottom of the spindle, and interferes with the ATC.

Regards,
Ray L.

Quote from: HimyKabibble on September 23, 2012, 02:02:19 PM

Steve,

Just for your amusement, here is the current state of my ATC

Well, if I am to be amused, I must get out my RED pencil   . . . kidding, of course. Your work is always first class and logically conceived.

Interesting thing is that what you have is something of a hybrid between the typical moving carousel arrangements that I have seen and with what I am doing. You move the carousel . .  so far fairly conventional . . . .  but as always there is the 'Kabibble Twist' on it. You move it with an arm! That removes one of my objections to the travelling carousel concept . .  that being the carousel hanging over the table. This is the first arrangement I have seen with an arm swinging the carousel. Very clever indeed.

Couple questions if you don't mind (not to worry no RED pencil here);

1) Another of my quibbles with the DIY setups is lack of protection for the taper (or 'stud' I suppose in your case). Do you have any plan to protect those surfaces from swarf?  Do you consider that a must have or optional?

Quote from: HimyKabibble

Yes, the carousel will be enclosed (a circular top cover, and 4" high side covering, so the tool holders are completely enclosed top and sides, with only longer tools exposed.  There will be a rotating door to uncover the selected tool, operated by a simple cable as the carousel swings into position.  I think this, alone, will suffice for keeping crud away from the tool holders.  If not, it will be easy to rig a Plexi or sheet metal shield between the back of the table and the front of the carousel when it's parked.

2) What kind of sensors are you planning? At what points in the process do you recon a confirmation is required before moving to the next step?

Quote from: HimyKabibble

I haven't worked out all the details, but I will be using a combination of microswitches and Hall sensors.  Switches will be used to ensure the arm moves to both extremes of motion.  This will allow me to stop operation if the arm jams for any reason.  Also to ensure the carousel "lift" mechanism moves full travel, so I can stop operation if the tool does not move fully into, or out of, the spindle.  There are Hall sensors on the Geneva to indicate it is "in position", and also one to indicate it is positioned at tool 1.  This will allow me to "home" the carousel, and track position during moves.  I also expect to have a hall sensor to detect a toolholder  is present in the selected position, so I can tell that it correctly was loaded into the spindle, or extracted from the spindle before proceding.  I think that should be enough....

3) Probably you would get around to this eventually, but I am impatient so . . what will drive the Geneva?

Quote from: HimyKabibble

The Geneva is driven by a simple DC gearmotor, about $35 from McMaster.  I hope to have that mounted and working no later than tomorrow.  I did prototype it a few months ago, and it worked perfectly - very smooth and quiet, and very precise positioning, with near zero torque required to rotate it.  The motor I'm using is not blindingly fast, but adequate - about 1 second per tool.  This should make the worst-case toolchange time maybe 15 seconds,. and the more typical (sequential) probably under 10 seconds.

4) did you make the holders in the carousel or are they a Tormach part?

Quote from: HimyKabibble

Made my own, though they are very similar to the Tormach (kinda have to be....).  They're cheap and easy to make, and a designed-in failure point in case of a jam.  They're attached with #10 Nylon screws, so a jam should simply rip the fork off the carousel, breaking only the screws.  Note that I could very easily fabricate a new carousel disc, and tool forks (no more than half a day's work), and switch the whole thing over to 30-taper.  No other changes should be required, other than perhaps extending the vertical travel of the carousel, which would just mean swapping out the air cylinder.

5) Will you use a sparate PLC to control the sequencing or will it be integrated into your Kflop system?

Quote from: HimyKabibble

Sequencing will be controlled entirely by the KFlop for now.  Until I run out of I/Os (and I'm not that far....), there's really no reason to do otherwise.  Once it's working, moving the functionality to a dedicated micro would be really trivial, and I'd probably just go to a simple RS232/RS485 serial interface (as I'm already doing on my pendant).

6) How do you do the thumbnail - to - full size photos?

Quote from: HimyKabibble

I don't....  I just attach the photos using the built-in function on the forum.

Quote from: simpson36 on September 23, 2012, 10:57:16 AM

DWalsh: caution about posting drawings . . . the teacher has a big RED pencil  . . .  a corner chair with dunce cap . . .  and possibly a wooden ruler  . .  and a paddle  

Do you really see anything wrong with that drawing?