I am a newbie on an MA-400HA hmc with the wine rack ATC. Is there a way to prevent the tool changer from returning a tool from the ready station back to the wine rack/magazine? Specifically, running a program that only uses 2 tools. As soon as the M6 completes the swap between ready station and spindle, the ATC2 takes over and returns the tool that just came out of the spindle even if there is a precall/preselect for that exact tool immediately following the M6.
Example:
T1
M6
T2
...
blah
blah
blah
...
T2
M6
T1 <--- tried adding this to keep T1 in ready station
...
blah
blah
blah
...
M2
At the start of the program, the machine waits for T1 to be fetched from the matrix magazine and placed in the ready station. Then, the first tool runs while T2 is brought to the ready station. After T2 is loaded into the spindle, the program runs and T1 is put away into the magazine.
The next time the program runs, the machine has to get T1 from the magazine again. It just had it! Why does it have to put it away?
I tried adding a T1 precall/preselect after the T2 tool change so that T1 would be in the ready station at the end of the program (and thus the beginning of the next cycle). Although this makes the start of the next cycle quicker, it then adds a delay after T2 is loaded because the ATC2 insists on putting T1 away in the magazine first so it can then retrieve it again and bring it back to the ready station. With the T1 precall after the T2 -> M6, the machine will not start moving until it has finished putting T1 away. Basically, ATC2 delays the start of T2's cutting code because it cannot fetch T1 until it finishes putting T1 away.
Any way to get the machine to just leave the 2 tools in the spindle and ready station?
Thanks.