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Author Topic: Ballistic ATC  (Read 11557 times)

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Re: Ballistic ATC
« Reply #10 on: February 07, 2016, 04:34:26 PM »
Yes I am using the Tormach TTS tooling system.  I have used them on the mill already and have had a good outcome with them so far.  I measure all the tools in their dedicated TTS holder prior to placing in the mill so I know the height of the tool.  All of these measurements are placed in my tool table automatically when done.  I have a tool setter now though that will sit on the table at all times off to the side to measure the tool in the spindle.  The location I set it at should not interfere with my milling operations, should is the key word.  

I have had a question about the attachment of the carousel to the gear box shaft.   What I plan on doing is having a round solid 6061 piece of alum.  3" dia drilled in the center that will slide over the shaft of the gearbox.  The hub I call it will be affixed to the gearbox .5" shaft with set screws that actually imbbed themselves into the shaft, the shaft will be drilled and tapped.  The bottom of the hub that is the attachment for the 10" carousel plate will have 3 8mm holes.  Bolts will go through the carousel plate into the hub to hold it in place.  The carousel plate will have a .125 deep 1.5" diameter flange cut into the plate so the hub will sit down into it for added strength.  This will keep the hub centered to the plate along with the 8mm bolts.  I feel this will plenty strong and should handle the weight.  If my idea does not work I have another idea but more involved but similar to the way a jet engine works in the shafting just requires more work, quite frankly I'm lazy so I will try easy first.

If anyone has any other ideas about the mounting go the carousel to the gearbox pass them along,  more heads are better than one.
Re: Ballistic ATC
« Reply #11 on: February 07, 2016, 04:50:37 PM »
Oh yes about the TTS,  I have heard that some people have had a problem with the tool comming lose in the spindle.  I am only running the spindle at 6000 to 6500 rpm and not taking monster wide deep cuts so I feel I should be ok.  I am using the well documented nordictrac motor with timing belt and timing pulleys.  The TTS will be held in place with 2300 lbs of force.  May have to adjust that but not a big deal.

The Igus rail is a real time saver for building the ATC.  For $169.00. shipped to the door you get 25" of rail and the bearing mount plate to mount the stepper/gearbox to.   The bearing block slides can handle dirt and cutting fluid as well although none of that should ever get on the rail.  For $50.00 A local fab shop is making the box that will be used to mount the stepper/gearbox to the Igus rail.  The box will  be made of .125" steel and the front of the box can be removed to access the stepper motor if need be.  
Re: Ballistic ATC
« Reply #12 on: February 11, 2016, 08:22:48 PM »
Ok have been trying to figure out how to attach the carousel to the nema34 gearbox.  I figured it out so that the weight of the carousel is on the four 8mm bolts that go into the gearbox.  I will post some pics when i get the parts done.  May not be the best but I can tell you this much you could hang off of it when I get it done!  The design I came up with should never fail and outlast the mill and me.  I ordered an Igus double rail but yep ordered the wrong one!  I needed the 20mm double rail, got it now.  The pics are of what it will look like put together minus the box the stepper motor/gearbox will be sitting in to attach it to the rail slide.  The other pic is of the PSI sensor for the ATC air system.  When the pressure of the system drops below 75psi mach3 through the M6start macro will message the user to check the air pressure.  At that point you can stop the procedure or fix the problem and continue on. 

Thanks for reading.

Jef
Re: Ballistic ATC
« Reply #13 on: February 11, 2016, 08:23:18 PM »
air sensor pic.
Re: Ballistic ATC
« Reply #14 on: March 10, 2016, 01:03:57 PM »
Just an update to the progress of the build.  I am waiting to get a few parts back from a machine shop as the parts I can not build.  Once my machine is done I could build the parts.  I am using the TTS tool holders and thought I had a source to make the TTS tool forks but that fell through so I will have to go to the source to get the TTS tool forks.  Once the tool forks are in my hand I will proceed to cut the tool carousel to the diameter that will work for my setup.  The tool forks will be placed from tool fork center every 30 degrees for a total of 12 tool forks. 

Jeff
Re: Ballistic ATC
« Reply #15 on: March 20, 2016, 06:05:20 PM »
This is the DXF file of my tool carousel.  I have also attached the tool carousel shaft that will hold the tool carousel plate.  This shaft will allow all the weight of the tool carousel to be on the 4 corner bolts of the planetary gear box.  The shaft will be inside a tube that will have a top plate welded to it.  The shaft will have a rigid coupling attached to it and on the other it will be attached to the gear box.  In the bottom of the tube there is going to be a thrust bearing that the outer flange of the shaft will sit on.  The bottom of the shaft will stick out the bottom of the tube where the carousel plate will attach to it.  The bottom of the shaft is 1.5'' diameter.

Jeff
Re: Ballistic ATC
« Reply #16 on: May 11, 2016, 11:39:01 PM »
Slow going but just an update to my ATC build for my G0704.  The current pictures are of the Nema34 1200oz/in motor and the 5:1 gear ratio Planetary gear box with the 12 tool carousel plate and the mount for the carousel plate.  Ok this design took some thinking to come up with.  I did not want the HUB to be held onto the gear box shaft by just two set screws.  If the two set screws become lose, the carousel will come crashing down onto the table with all your tools that are in the carousel.  My design has the 4 corner bolts of the gear box holding the weight of the tools and the carousel.  I have a thrust bearing placed inside the tube to allow the shaft coupler to rest on.  The steel tube was machined exactly the same diameter as the OD of the thrust bearing.  If for some reason the thrust bearing goes bad, not that it will the whole assembly can be taken apart and a new one put in.  In operation the thing is smooth as glass.

When I get a little further along I will post a video of it working.  I think the big challenge will be fitting the ATC to the Mill.  I will not attach the ATC to the Mill column.  I really have an appreciation for others who have built these ATC's and have had success.  It's not hard but sure is a big challenge and I am not done yet.  I do have all the electronics side of things done and seems to be all working fine.  I do need to still figure out where I want to place the magnet for the homing sensor for the carousel.

Thanks for reading.

Jeff
Re: Ballistic ATC
« Reply #17 on: May 11, 2016, 11:51:00 PM »
I forgot to add, I hooked up the ATC air pressure sensor.  The ATC Air PSI will run at 80PSI I could run more but I sized everything to run at a low pressure.  If the air PSI drops to 75 PSI the ATC system will stop and message the user to check the air pressure and then click ok to allow the Macro to continue the operation.  If you don't want to continue and there is a PSI problem like a lose fitting then you can STOP the operation as well.  If I  don't want to use the ATC and do manual tool changes I can take the PSI sensor out of the picture so that it will not shut the system down as well.   In testing seems to work as planned.

Thanks,

Jeff
Re: Ballistic ATC
« Reply #18 on: September 10, 2016, 12:16:45 AM »
Well just an update on my progress.  I have almost all the the machining done on the G0704 mill turned CNC with ATC TTS tool changer.  I have stripped the Mill head of all the internals and just have the spindle and the quil bearings in the housing.  I left the upper Quil housing with the two gears to give the spindle shaft more rigidity when operating instead of just pressing in the bearing into the mill housing.  To operate the motor I am using the KBMM-225D-KB for the drive with the AUX heat sink.  I am using the 0.006 OHM resistor.  All the parts in the pictures were made from scratch.  The TTS tool holders were lazer cut then the grove was machined afterwards.  I have the macro and the ATC screen done with the help of two awesome people.  Out of the whole process so far the Macro to run the tool changer was the hardest part.  It took a while to understand how the macros work and the VB language that is used to create the macros.  

I still have to make the brackets that will hold the ATC but that part should not be so bad as I already have all the design work done on that.  The ATC will not be attached to the Z column of the mill.  The ATC will have a seperate steel plate that is welded to the mill table.  The ATC will be on its own tower that will be fully adjustable in the X,Y, and Z for fine tunning adjustments.  The ATC carousel will hold 12 tools.  At first the carousel disk would not fit under the spindle because the diameter of the disk was to big.  To compensate for this I bought a Y Extension to move the mill head away from the column to give me the clearance for the disk.  The design of the carousel disk is such that there is no way the ATC carousel hub can come off from normal use.  I saw on CNCZONE where a few Tormach owners were having problems with the set screw backing out of the ATC gear box shaft and the carousel would go crashing down onto the table with all the tools, not a good thing.  It's been a work in progress but it is all comming together just not as fast as I would like due to this thing called a JOB "Just Over Broke!"  
Re: Ballistic ATC
« Reply #19 on: September 10, 2016, 12:19:40 AM »
Here are some more pics.