ATC Slide

[cornbinder23]

Looks Skookum Richard!

JTCUSTOMS

[Starleper1]

Very nice.

Do you have any plans for chip guards?

[rwskinner]

Thanks, Yes, it will be enclosed. It will look a lot like the Tormach ATC to a certain extent. I plan to have a cover with a retracting door. That of course only occurs after it's put on to see if it even works

Richard

Very nice.

Do you have any plans for chip guards?

[pete from TN]

Hey man you blaze the trail so we can all follow!! that is looking pretty sweet... I guess it is all made from what 1/4 inch plate? If you think about it the ATC is not really that complicated in actuality... It just takes a lot of work to make all the little parts. I still have to make the PDB before I can get to that but who knows when I will have a chance to do it. I will have to just watch you and enjoy your progress. I look forward to the day when I watch a video of an RF45 performing a flawless toolchange!! Keep on Keepin' on man... Peace

Pete

[skray775]

That looks fantastic!

All the fingers including the Nylon fingers machined today and bolted up. They grip pretty good. Maybe a little too good. Once I get everything together where I can test I can always slot or relieve the nylon some. They may be fine the way they are.

Pictures....

[rwskinner]

Thanks guys.

Here is the detail the spindle shaft and housing. The housing contains two 15x31x9 Angular contact bearings and a .469-32 bearing nut.

[hoss2006]

Nice work Richard, good to see someone else actually making an atc and not just talking about it.
Keep up the good work.
Hoss

[rwskinner]

Thanks Hoss. You provide most of the inspiration I have

Richard

Nice work Richard, good to see someone else actually making an atc and not just talking about it.
Keep up the good work.
Hoss

[hoss2006]

Thanks Hoss. You provide most of the inspiration I have

Richard

Ah shucks, glad to help what little I can.
Keep at it, the first successful auto toolchange makes all the design, machining, building
and testing worthwhile, and it's COOL to watch.
Hoss

[rwskinner]

I only have a couple hours each morning to work on this before I go to work so it's slow going. The motor drive and brackets are done. I have the slide built and I need to machine one more bracket to mount it to the slide.

After that comes the more fun part, build the steel bracket that mounts the assembly to the column. I have it designed in CAD but I want make sure I cover all the adjustments, up/down, in/out, and tilt. Oh, I still need to get a small DA air cylinder and another 5 way electric solenoid valve.

A couple more boring pics....

[rwskinner]

I had time to knock out another little bracket that attaches the assembly to the slide rails. If your getting tired of all the pics let me know and I will stop attaching them.


Richard

[Bubba]

PLEASE don't stop the pictures, they are giving me lots of ideas for the future:}) They also fill in some of the things that I don't quite understand from the discussion.

Keep it up.

[gd.marsh]

I'm with Bubba .. keep the pics coming!

You're blazing another trail here & there's LOTS of us who are keenly interested & will likely follow in your footsteps in the future.

Document your progress well with pictures cause 'a picture is worth a thousand words ..'

Gary

[jdurkin]

Pictures Yeh - the more the better.

Richard - thats a work of art that mate - well done.

Looking forward to see details on controlling this - lots on info on this area please.

Take it easy

John

[rwskinner]

Thanks for all the Kudos. I just knocked out the main bracket the linear rails attach to. Everything lined up and it all moves smoothly.

During the Holidays and installing my Central Heat Pump inthe office/shop I got distracted and forgot to order my cylinder. So I ordered it today and the valve. That stuff won't be in until the end of next week.

1 bracket left, mounting the entire works to the column. This will be the fun bracket and I will have to clamp and measure and then measure again. I held it up there and got a close idea and it looks like the CAD mach up of the mill is going be dead on. I mean it should be if I modeled it all correctly.

Air Cylinder. It's a double acting 1-1/16" bore x 12" stroke cylinder that will be controlled with a 12 volt 5 way spring return solenoid valve. I did not see any cylinders like I wanted with internal cushions so I will have to devise a way for it not to slam open and closed. Needle valve is my first thought.

Richard

[cornbinder23]

That looks fantastic so far, I am looking forward to following in your footsteps.
You could use something like this
Or I even thought maybe some cheap RC car shock absorbers, you can adjust the damping rate with different viscosity silicone oils.

Just a thought

JTCUSTOMS

[mcphill]

Another vote for keeping the pix coming - more would be even better, and video is welcome too!

[Starleper1]

You could use a flow control. Which is basically a needle valve with a built in check. Just make sure to get meter out not meter in.

I'm curious why you chose the DCV you did, why not just a 4/2?

[rwskinner]

I moved my control box to the right side of the mill. It has the Kill button, PDB Button and air solenoid inside of it.

I took the cherry picker and hung the ATC and got some measurements.

The square tubing is mounted to the column via spacers. One side of the square tubing has horizontal slots and the other side has vertical slots.

I'm building a lightweight extension bracket to mount the slide to the square tubing. It's made from 5" wide x .125 flat steel. It will have the top boxed in with plate and a few stiffeners on the sides to keep it from flexing much.

The Extension bracket will be all one continous flat with bends and only welded in one corner where it comes together.

There will be horiztontal slots on the slide so I can move the entire thing closer or further from the spindle.

If I can figure out how to unfold my sheetmetal bracket and alibre and print my dimensions on the flat I can fab this up pretty quick.

[Starleper1]

Looks like a plan.

If you can't get Alibre to flatten it, I can flatten it out in Solidworks for you if you want.