[Gookinhimer]

My boss and I can't figure this out. We have a part running with a few large tools and we're trying to avoid any potential pocket smashing. Right now we're manually placing in the second large tool to be sure. He knew you're supposed to be able to keep large designated pockets with empty spots on either side but when we tried it we realized it marked the pocket but not the tool. So it only really worked if the tool went back to its original pocket, which of course isn't the case with the random atc. I thought maybe it just marked whatever pocket was with the tool but that was not the case as the machine was placing large tools next to normies like nothing. Am I just missing something here? I've looked over large designation in the manual and I didn't get anything I didn't already know out of it. Do individual tools have to be designated as large in the program itself? Any help would be appreciated. Here's a screenie of what I'm talking about (link) Tool 16 is one of the large ones, but as you can see it's in pocket 12 next to tool 9. I also noticed that normal tools do not change the "L" to and "l" in the large pockets like it's supposed to. Any help would be great.

[extanker59]

I believe that even with random ATC for other tools, it will always put the Large tool in the same pocket. Slows the tool change down but when you have to, you have to. You have to manually ensure the pockets on either side are empty before loading the large tool. After that, it will keep track as long as the tool is marked large.

[haastec]

My boss and I can't figure this out. We have a part running with a few large tools and we're trying to avoid any potential pocket smashing. Right now we're manually placing in the second large tool to be sure. He knew you're supposed to be able to keep large designated pockets with empty spots on either side but when we tried it we realized it marked the pocket but not the tool. So it only really worked if the tool went back to its original pocket, which of course isn't the case with the random atc. I thought maybe it just marked whatever pocket was with the tool but that was not the case as the machine was placing large tools next to normies like nothing. Am I just missing something here? I've looked over large designation in the manual and I didn't get anything I didn't already know out of it. Do individual tools have to be designated as large in the program itself? Any help would be appreciated. Here's a screenie of what I'm talking about (link) Tool 16 is one of the large ones, but as you can see it's in pocket 12 next to tool 9. I also noticed that normal tools do not change the "L" to and "l" in the large pockets like it's supposed to. Any help would be great.

It's difficult to comment directly on your situation because I would need to see how things were when you initially set the LARGE tool desigantions. So I will attempt at explaining my steps when setting up "L" tools in the carousel,

Lets beging by assuming that nothing was set to L in your screen shot. If I wanted to label T8 as a large tool, I would first make sure that the pockets on either side, P9 and P11, were both physically empty (this is critical). The machine now recognizes T8 as being a large tool and will always put T8 back into this same spot unless you add more L tools.

Moving forward, if you want to set T5 as large. Again, first make sure that pockets 4 and 6 are both empty before setting T5 to L. Same thing for T12, make sure pockets 15 and 17 are empty first.

Now the machine will recognize T8, T5 and T12 as large tools, no need to do anything else. Because you have 3 large tools, the machine will recognize that pockets 5,10,and 16 are reserved for Large tools and the machine can randomly put T5,T8, and T12 in either one of those pockets, depending on how your tool change cycle progresses.

Most mistakes I see regarding L tool setup is not making sure that the adjacent pockets are empty first. The machine inserts the zero for the adjacent pockets to identify that they are empty; it's up to the operator to make sure it is correct.

Not sure if this sheds any light on your situation or not. Hopefully it does.

[extanker59]

And remember that the pocket numbers are not necessarily the same numbers as the tools! At least that's true on our Side Mount Tool Changer. Never had an umbrella carousel tool changer.

[RBrandes]

Large tool was a little scarry for me at first. When the large tool is called, it trades a small tool into that pocket. Then when a different small tool is called, the large tool swaps back to it's pocket and the earlier small tool is in the spindle. Then that gets traded for the different small tool.
The creepy thing is that you can't slow down the arm like you can slow down rapid moves. When it swings it swings!
Also, clearing the large tool designation had me and the Haas tech puzzled for some time. What works on my VF2 is replacing the "L" with a space.
Regards, Ray