[boydage]

Never 100% satisfied with my home build machine. Gee, I must have spent 1000hrs on my machine. I still remember the 1st one, the first cut that was someone elses code, plunged my endmill 30mm into a piece of hardwood and almost smoked my little Makita Router with that noise we all know ha. Up to today, machining a piece of 6061, a satisfying rooster tail of alloy chips coming off my favorite 12mm endmill, where a couple of them end up in the carpet in my house. The familiar squawk of my beautiful wife when she sees them.

My workshop flooded about 3 months ago. My insurance has paid out for a bunch of stuff I am not going to replace. I have a few $$ left over.

I am upgrading my machine to an ATC spindle. It is a 6kw ISO30 air-cooled model with a Fuling 7.5KW VFD. Im all good for setting it up physically. Maybe might need a wee bit of advise on the VFD parameters, but the ISO30 holder I have only ever seen online. Im just going to go manual change for now whilst I sort out an auto changer. I will use the machine tool change auto Z zero though still and hope to save tool change time by no longer having to unscrew and rescrew in my current collet setup to change a tool.

I am still using a real cheap BOB which is completely maxed out in its inputs and outputs. When I get around to an auto change system I will need to look at a controller upgrade - not looking forward to that tbh along with the code to get it to work. I think I will bench test one prior to installing it. The automated mechanics will be a fun design and build though.

I also was thinking about the touch-off auto zero. Is this a better system, or is setting up tools in holders in a jig with length offsets programmed into my controller a better way to go instead of touching off each tool change?

So, (question) standard with one of these, first purchase to start with, would I go out and buy say, half a dozen ISO30 ER32 toolholders so I can use my original set of ER32 collets with 6 most common endmills setup? Actually I will replace the collets but all the same in the question. I guess I would also buy a toolholder for my probe too huh? And make a nice little stand to hold them.

I have air supply at the spindle already. Expect I will need to change my power supply conductor to handle a 6Kw spindle. Im just not sure what else I need to get to install it over the end of year break. I imagine getting it installed only to have to wait 5 days for a part needed to make it go arrive. I am guessing after reading the manual that the spindle will have a manual release button for tool change. And in the future this will be done via input from my controller.

Gee if anyone has installed one of these in the past please drop a comment as to what I might need but have missed would be awesome. Have I got something incorrect here? What other advantages, or even disadvantages, come with one of these spindles?

Thanks in advance.

[PrestonSMA]

This is the ATC that I just purchased, based on several others also buying it and integrating
it into other systems...hard to even purchase all of the materials for the cost.

https://www.alibaba.com/product-deta...43855314rUAc8Z

We also just changed from Centroid Acorn 4 axis to Acorn6 axis to be able to handle the ATC
and 4th and 5th axis in our Hurco Bed Mill.

Hope that gives you some ideas.

Regards, Preston