Z-Bot programmable coolant sneak peek.
I'm extremely lucky that I live just a few miles away from Z-Bot LLC, the company that makes the ATC's for our Tormach mills. From time to time I drop by, and I get to see previews of new products that are in development. Most of the time I have to keep quiet about them, but I've got permission to talk about this one.
Disclaimer: I am not an owner or employee of Z-Bot, but I have done some contract work for them in the past, making various small components. I don't stand to profit from this product, other than possibly being given one to beta test.
Z-Bot is making a programmable coolant system for our mills. Actually, it's for any mill that runs Mach3.
The prototype that I saw was as you'd expect, a little rough looking. There were circuit boards and tangles of cables and components mounted in project boxes. This is normal for a first model. First you make it and see if it works. Then you focus on making it pretty. This product definitely works.
I expect that the Tormach version will have a bracket to mount the unit to the mill head. The prototype was mounted to the head by a magnetic base, and it worked just fine. The generic version will probably just come with a mag base, so it can quickly be mounted on whatever mill the customer has.
This is a standalone unit that plugs into a spare USB port. The system is designed to work with the Tormach ATC, but an ATC is not necessary. All you need is a USB port. And the unit is small enough that it would even fit on an X2 mini-mill.
To set it up, you perform an initial calibration by aiming the coolant at two tools of differing length. After that is done, every time you perform a tool change, the software reads the tool length offset, and uses that number to calculate the aim point for the coolant. When a tool change happens, the nozzle adjusts its aim to target the new tool.
I've used a similar system on a Haas mill, and the Z-Bot system is actually smarter. The Haas system has separate tool table fields for the coolant angle, which the operator must set up. With the Z-Bot system, if your tool offset is correct, the coolant will be on target.
A nice side effect of that is, if the coolant is not hitting the tool on target, you know that your tool offset is incorrect. It will give you a chance to hit the E-stop before you break something.
The prototype was set up with a single nozzle. I'm told that the final control box will support two nozzles, one mounted to the right side of the head, and one on the front. Two streams of coolant at 90 degree angles will be very useful for clearing chips on deep slotting cuts.
There is also a second mode where the nozzles follow the workpiece as the head moves up and down. This will be especially useful for deep hole drilling, when you want the coolant to stay aimed at the top of the drilled hole, not at the tip of the drill bit.
You can set both nozzles on the tool, or both on the work, or one in each mode.
Lastly, there's a table sweep mode, where the nozzle rapidly changes angle to sweep chips away from a large area. For a large pocket, this could help clear chips. And when combined with a Y axis move, it can be used to clean chips away from a finished part.
I don't have any info on pricing at this time, nor do I have an ETA. But I am hoping to beta test one in the next few months.
Cheers,
Frederic
Re: Z-Bot programmable coolant sneak peek.
I know this is an old post but did Z-Bot ever develop this?
Re: Z-Bot programmable coolant sneak peek.
I need this in my life
Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk
Re: Z-Bot programmable coolant sneak peek.
I made a system that works like this. It uses an RC servos, an arduino and is controlled through Mach3 modbus.
http://www.cnczone.com/forums/open-s...t-nozzles.html
Re: Z-Bot programmable coolant sneak peek.
Why haven't you packaged it up and started selling them?! Get it proven and call Tormach.
Brian
WOT Designs
Re: Z-Bot programmable coolant sneak peek.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
WOTDesigns
Why haven't you packaged it up and started selling them?! Get it proven and call Tormach.
Brian
WOT Designs
bozidar22, SUPER impressive project. Those servo holders/nozzle assembly is beautiful!!
Brian, check out his thread... in the spirit of Arduino and open source, he has shared his code and design. It appears we would just need to modify it so that it would take the tool height from Mach. These are the time I wish I knew more about programming!
David
Re: Z-Bot programmable coolant sneak peek.
Way over my head for programming but I sure as hell would pay $500 for a kit ready to bolt up. Open source or not there is work and design involved and many people would be happy to pay for that work. Including me up until a week ago when I sold both my Mach 3 machines.
Next time I have a spare $1K I'm buying the HAAS P-Cool unit. I could make my own but to get it bolted up working is worth $1K to me. And I'm sure many feel the same way for this. Heck Tormach is selling starter kit for an 8020 enclosure... Which is available anywhere and the dimensions can be figured out with a tape measurer
Brian
WOT Designs
Re: Z-Bot programmable coolant sneak peek.
I don't have a Tormach to test it on.
Not sure if my screen set will interfere with the Tormachs.
It may be possible to add the coolant nozzle screens to the Tormachs. Not sure if the OEM screen codes will clash or they use modbus.
Feel free to experiment or improve it. It was a fun learning experience for me.
Re: Z-Bot programmable coolant sneak peek.
Impressive work Bozidar. I think that a previous reply was suggesting that you contact Tormach and see if they would be interesting marketing your design for their mills. If they are interested, they could do the custom engineering to match your design to their products and you could get some licensing fees or royalties.
Mike
Re: Z-Bot programmable coolant sneak peek.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
bozidar22
I don't have a Tormach to test it on.
Not sure if my screen set will interfere with the Tormachs.
It may be possible to add the coolant nozzle screens to the Tormachs. Not sure if the OEM screen codes will clash or they use modbus.
Feel free to experiment or improve it. It was a fun learning experience for me.
Does your design interface with Mach and the tool heights? If not, do you have any idea what that would take from a programming perspective?
David
Re: Z-Bot programmable coolant sneak peek.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
David Bord
Does your design interface with Mach and the tool heights? If not, do you have any idea what that would take from a programming perspective?
David
The screenset contains the manual controls on the main page. A nozzle setup page and a special function page.
The above pages may be able to be added to the Tormach screen set using a screen editor. Just have to make sure the same DRO screenset codes are not used or bad things can happen. Not sure if they allow this or if it is locked out.
A brain takes the tool height, width and the information from the setup page. Runs it through a couple of trigonometry formulas and sends the angle over modbus to the Arduino.
The fixed and follow depth brains are about the same except the follow depth brain subtracts the Z DRO from the tool height.
The sweep is produced by starting at the fixed angle then adding the selected angle to it. Then going back to the fixed angle. This is done in the arduino. Most of the arduino program is for the the modbus communication (I did not make this)
The hardware side is PC>usb cable>Arduino>RC servo. Plus a separate power supply for the servo.
