[ballistic42]

Well its been a long time comming but nearing the finish line to getting my G0704 CNC mill back up and running. Tomorrow I will start to build the table and the enclosure that will hold the mill and the ATC 12 slot tool changer. I got all the electronics and software working for the tool changer today. I ran my M6start macro and it works like clock work. All the air cylinders and the PDB worked perfect. The picture is of the console I built to hold the PC mother board, power supply for the mother board, 2 solid state 250gig hard drives, panel mount keyboard, and my 21.5" touch screen. The estop button on the left when pushed kills the control box that houses all the electronics for the mill including the KBMM 225D drive for my tread mill motor. The green button is used to latch the relay closed thats inside the control box and will stay closed up until the estop on the console is pushed in. If for some reason the mill was doing a job and I lost electrical power the relay will open, when power is restored the green button would have to be pushed in again to latch the relay closed. The GREEN LED light shows the relay is latched closed. The RED LED light shows the relay is open. This way I always know what state of power the electrical cabinet is in.

The ATC screen works all from touching the screen no keyboard needed. I can load and unload the spindle by just touching the slot numbers. The carousel tracks what tool is in what slot. If I load tool 3 into the spindle it knows that it came out of slot 5. The program automactically updates the DROS to what tool went into the spindle. I can run the tool changer manually or I can load the spindle by typing in the MDI M6T7 as an example. All the on screen buttons are used to manully operate a tool change. Basically the ATC knows after you load the changer where each tool is reference to the slot number. If I want to I can add a tool and click UDATE ATC and then that tool will be assigned to that slot number. I can add upto 99 tools. The program also keeps track of the Mach3 tool library so it gives the user the tool definition and the offset tool length as the tool is loaded. The tool change process took 7 seconds today from running the M6 start macro. It stowed the old tool that was in spindle, put it back in the slot it came out of. The carousl rotates to the new tool and sticks that one in the spindle. The program alwasy stuffs the old tool back in the slot# it came out of.

Thanks for reading. I should have more pics and videos in a few weeks of everything running and done!

[bill south]

Fantastic Job ballistic42. Any chance you can share that M6Start Macro and screenset? I'd love to see how it works. I feel an ATC for my RF45 in the future!
Thanks for Sharing.
Bill

Again, really nice layout!
B

[ballistic42]

Fantastic Job ballistic42. Any chance you can share that M6Start Macro and screenset? I'd love to see how it works. I feel an ATC for my RF45 in the future!
Thanks for Sharing.
Bill

Again, really nice layout!
B

Bill I would like to share it with you but it was a friend that wrote the programming for the tool changer and how that works. The screen is mine but the programing is his. I do know he will sell the screen set and the macros that go with it for under $100 which is cheap for what it does! It's an awesome setup and on my machine it can get the old tool from the spindle, put it back in the slot it came from and then get the new requested tool. The whole process is 6 seconds on my machine. PM me if you are intrested. I have a ton of hours in the part of the screen set I did and the macros that are behind the buttons. If you have a touch screen you can run the whole tool changer from that automatically or can use the buttons to do a manual tool change.

Thanks, Jeff