any recent advances in DIY toolchangers?

[vacpress]

hello! i am digging up toolchanger threads some more.. anyone know of any recent movement here?

i want a way to switch 2 to 8 end mills in a small laminate trimmer.. it seems really hard to make these 'ball-spring' holder that wont be horribly eccentric, and the products ive seen that work well on full size routers probably wont work so well on a 1hp laminate trimmer. but then, maybe someone has tried it?

anyone know of a smaller version of this basic concept, or other similar things that work? i remember seeing a similar arrangement sold as a quick change system for regular hand drills. it had tons of runout, but maybe someone has seen this product and has some ideas?

anyone actually tried to make a little device with a solenoid grabber and a stepper or servo to physically loosen the normal router-style collet?

thanks in advance!

[Switcher]

I've been looking at this ( http://midwestrapidtool.com/ ) type of toolchanger system for a while, only as a diy project with Mach3.

Can anyone tell me how they are getting the drawbar thru the router motor, without messing up the motor?

The system looks very simple, yet very good. I'm thinking the entire system could be built for around $500.00 .



They also have an auction on ebay:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Automatic-Tool-C...QQcmdZViewItem


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[vacpress]

hey, thanks switcher. i am checking it out.

[vacpress]

well. after looking at that, it seems the real secret is a spindle with a drawbar... that thing looks like a contraption at $1800.00, maybe at $300 it would look appealing. a $250 holder for a $150 router is not completely absurd, probably, but it isnt in my price range.

i suppose they probably take the motor and use a lathe to bore a hole for the drawbar? i suppose this isnt a totally crazy idea, but it would be allot harder with the smaller laminate trimmer, or some spindle other than that porter cable they like.

thanks for the lead

[Switcher]

The system I posted is more than I want to spend, I just thought the whole setup should be doable on a diy cnc machine.

Maybe I should build the cnc first?



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