[SCzEngrgGroup]

I think I've reached an important milestone: I believe I've just exorcised the last demon out of the ATC. It's been working well for a while now, and the last few weeks have been more about improving the UI and convenience of operation. A few bugs were found, all minor. Yesterday, I resolved the last significant issue I've seen. On occasion, the arm would not correctly grab the tool in the spindle, when attempting to put it back in the carousel. After this happened enough times, I noticed it only occurred on specific toolholders, all of which had something in common - these were TTS knock-off toolholders I bough on E-Bay many years ago. They came without ATC grooves, and I added those myself later. However, they had very little "meat" in the ATC groove area, leaving a very narrow lip below the groove, as you can see in this photo:



Since I stopped using those holders, I have not had a single failure. So, I'll be buying a bunch of proper holders to replace these.

The other thing that has me feeling really good is I can't even remember the last time I had a failure of any kind that was NOT detected by the firmware. It is really good at detecting problems, and aborting the operation, with no harm done. Recovery from any error also could not be simpler: If the failure leaves a tool in the arm or the spindle, simply put it back in the carousel manually, then re-try the failed operation.

I've also completely re-written the browser interface, making it both more functional, and more aesthetically pleasing. Here are screen-shots of the new design:



Regards,
Ray L.

I have to wonder.... Given that I'm looking at retiring/replacing a significant number of my TTS collet chucks, would anyone be interested in buying them at maybe ~1/2 price? I have 20 of the non-ATC-compatible ER20s. I'd sell them for $250 (collets not included). They wouldn't help someone planning on getting an ATC, but they're perfectly good for manual use.

Regards,
Ray L.

[Kenny Duval]

I might be interested. I was looking to Darkon for some of the low profile Non-ATC ER20 but they have been out of stock on the website for some time now.

[SCzEngrgGroup]

I might be interested. I was looking to Darkon for some of the low profile Non-ATC ER20 but they have been out of stock on the website for some time now.

Kenny,

Hopefully you're not in a hurry then? I'm thinking I might be able to re-work these, by pressing on collars to add some metal below the groove. That would be easy, except the wrench flats are there also, so the collar can't be very thick.

I am going to buy more chucks anyway, probably ER32s, or a mix of ER20s and ER32s, as I'm forever short on holders.

Regards,
Ray L.

[Kenny Duval]

Certainly no hurry. I don't do this for living. It's something to occupy my time when I'm not working.

[SCzEngrgGroup]

Made a kinda cool fixture today. As a bonus, it gives me a good use for my non-ATC-friendly ER20 chucks.

Attachment 282292

It holds 6 TTS collet-chucks, for holding some of the small parts for the ATC. I'll probably make a second one. It can also double as a mill-turn tooling fixture, which is where I got the basic design (Thanks to John Gamble, and others).

Since I retired the knock-off ER20 chucks I've not had a single hiccup on the ATC. I've got a metric cr@pload of new ER20 and ER32 chucks on the way from Darkon. I trust the ATC enough to walk away while it's working, as even if it does do something wrong, I am confident the error will be caught, and there will be no harm done. Sure is nice not having to babysit the machine so much!

Regards,
Ray L.

[RCaffin]

Hi Ray

Very elegant, but forgive me: what does it DO?
OK, I am ignorant...

Cheers
Roger

[kvom]

It's a gang tool for drilling/tapping ops on parts held in the mill spindle. I suppose that for mass production purposes it will be faster than even using the ATC. The other positions could hold some lathe tools as well.

[SCzEngrgGroup]

Hi Ray

Very elegant, but forgive me: what does it DO?
OK, I am ignorant...

Cheers
Roger

I have a number of very small parts to be made for the ATC that are difficult to hold. But, they have a round boss on one end. So, I can hold that boss in a collet, in a collet chuck. The fixture let's me make six of these at once.



Regards,
Ray L.

[RCaffin]

Aha - I see, I think.
Something like this then?

Up to 10 parts in parallel. Yeah, that idea works great.

Cheers
Roger

[SCzEngrgGroup]

Here's the first test part made on the fixture, to test the designG-code. Came out perfect!

Attachment 282388


Regards,
Ray L.

[tmarks11]

Beautiful work... as always!

[SCzEngrgGroup]

These little parts can be a PITA, but they're also kinda cool - like little jewels. These were interesting - I had to make them one at a time (couldn't use my spiffy new fixture (yet), due to a CAM limitation. They take so little time, there was about as much time spent doing toolchanges as machining. Even so, they probably tool about 90 minutes to do all 12 parts. It is a treat being able to just load a blank, press Run, and walk away. I'm going to enjoy having an ATC at last!

Also just updated the web server, so if an ATC or PDB error does occur, it will automatically load a page that alerts the user, and, eventually, will give instructions on clearing the error and resuming work. Had to learn a little AJAX (asynchronous Javascript) for that little trick!

Regards,
Ray L.

[RCaffin]

Hi Ray

Take CAM program, remove start and end bits, wrap in higher level program to handle coord offsets, etc.
I don't use CAM, I write the G-code myself. That makes it easier.

cheers
Roger

[SCzEngrgGroup]

Hi Ray

Take CAM program, remove start and end bits, wrap in higher level program to handle coord offsets, etc.
I don't use CAM, I write the G-code myself. That makes it easier.

cheers
Roger

I can actually do all that semi-automatically in the POST. Just need a few hours to implement it. Making it efficient will be a bit more effort.

Regards,
Ray L.

[kvom]

HSMXpress doesn't do nesting, which is the main problem it seems. Splitting the ops and applying across multiple parts to reduce tool changes is more complicated. But since posts in HSMXpress are Javascript, it does seem doable.

[tmarks11]

What I have done is make an assembly in solid works with each of the components you want to cut spaced by the precise dimensions of your fixture. HSMXpress can then be used as normal.

Not as convenient as if HSMXpress supported nesting, but it doesn't take that long.

You could probably use your SW model of the fixture you built, and make an assembly with that and the components you want to cut. Than all the precise dimensioning between components is taken care of.

[vertcnc]

Using Solidworks or Inventor you could make an assembly of multiple copies of the part spaced like fixture, then create your tool paths within the assembly. This is the way I do nested parts and seems to work fine.
Better yet is to create the assembly including your fixture.

[tmarks11]

spooky...

[SCzEngrgGroup]

I almost always use assemblies for fixtures. But, in this case, an assembly doesn't work well. For some reason, the reamed holes for the TTS shanks came out over-sized, which means all the TTS holders are shifted slightly from their proper positions. There is no easy way in HSMXpress to deal with those inconsistent offsets. I can make a fixture model that shifts the part locations, but then it's impossible to properly define the stock for 2DAdaptive operations, without it spending a huge amount of time cutting air. At some point, I'll need to make a new fixture - not big deal really.

Regards,
Ray L.

[SCzEngrgGroup]

Had an interesting day yesterday - did HSM on steel for the first time, cutting the driving shaft for the ATC carousel. It's kinda cool watching the machine cutting steel at 70 IPM! Sadly, I now have to spend a considerable amount of time generating a proper tool library for steel - a real PITA.... I wish I had some way to get a decent video of the steel cutting, but with all the coolant flow, there would be little to really see.

Also made further improvements to the ATC web interface, and, thanks to more AJAX code, it's now working more smoothly - more responsive than before, with far fewer page re-loads, and I've "hidden" the tuning pages - they're in there, but only I will know how to access them.

Regards,
Ray L.