Hello Hood - long time no speak
I picked up a thread from 2012 in which you showed a 12 tool tool changer you were going to manufacture

Did you get it going??

regards

fred evans

Yes and have just finished making an 8 pos VDI one to replace the 12 position one.
Pic below of new one.
One day  I may ( or most likely may not) get round to painting the cover

Hood

You've attached the wrong pic Hood; that's no turret.  SWMBO & I Netflix'ed 'Star Trek Into The Darkness' last night and your pic is of the Warp Drive® core module.

(Got any videos of it working?)

LOL

Vid of it indexing here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35p74Bf51u4

Hood,

VERY cool, but looks like you've got a pretty massive coolant leak!  :-)

Regards,
Ray L.

Hood, why replace the 12 w/an 8 ?
Curious,
Thanks

thanks hood-- very impressive
All running on Mach3??
excuse my ignorance but what is VDI ??
Is this your workshop??
are there any pictures nof your shop??
regards fred

Ray,
 thats the washdown

Russ,
 12 Pos was just too crowded, originally I wanted 10 pos but the curvic was 48 teeth so only  allowed me to have 8 or 12 . I could have made an offset plate for 10 positions but it would have been awkward. Eight positions on the standard clamp type turret was a pain as I regularly use more than 8 tools so would be constantly swapping and setting. The VDI allows me to swap out with pre-set tools repeatably.
I have also made up a jig so that I can set tools up and they will be close on the X so only a slight tweak to get dialed correctly in. Was going to mount it somewhere in the workshop but space is a premium so found the perfect spot, on the lathe itself where the front post used to be .


Fred
 Yes from Mach using a PLC and an Indexing servo drive.

Yes it is my workshop but no pics, too cluttered to stand back far enough to take any

VDI is a type of holder that is clamped into the turret with a kind of teeth and wedge system, see pic. Means tools can be swapped in and out and are repeatable. The tollerances are fairly tight, for example the holders have the centre tooth at 29.7mm and the hole for the wedge needs to be at 30mm, this means when the wedge is screwed in it will push the tool holder tight against the face of the plate.

Hood

again--what is a curvic ?

It is a high precision ground toothed coupling which allows repeatability when rotated and clamped in any position. Pic below showing one that I had on the previous turret, also a pic of the coupling used on this one. It is a Hirth coupling, similar but different idea but does the same thing and is just as accurate..
Hood

Edit, I only show one half of each, there are two that mesh with each other.