RapicChangeATC #4 testing update
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- Опубліковано 3 тра 2024
- I have just finished my reliability testing of the RapidChange ATC and cover the results in this video.
First three videos in this series:
• First test of RapidCha...
• Preliminary Review of ...
• RapidChange ATC testin... - Навчання та стиль
Thanks for your testing with this system.
My hope is that they keep expanding compatibility and reliability, without selling out to some industry giant that will jack the price way up or take it off market due to having a competing product.
On the subject of collets.. Chinese collets suck. Even if you check runout at the top of the shank, concentricity at the tip is often terrible.
Maritool is a good middle ground between China and Lyndex for example. They are more expensive, but they are more accurate, help tools last longer, and come in all sorts of metric and standard sizes. I think half mm increments too on the metric side to fit whatever oddball tooling you have.
As you know, you want a slip fit which will occur when you use a 1/2 collet with a 1/2 tool, where the tool goes in without a fight, but where it doesn't slide out. Not just for the tool changer, but for tool life, collet longevity, and accuracy too.
EDIT - *tool not bit
You don't use bits, you use tools.
You use bits in your screwdriver.
You load a drill into your collets, not a bit.
Sorry. Pet peeve that was drilled into my head by an old wiley bastard of a machinist / shop owner.
Hope no offense is taken. Lol😅
I agree, I think this ATC fits a part of the market that isn't served will by the traditional ATC, and I think there is easily room for both in the market.
Thanks for the tip, i will take a look at Maritool. I have been using collets that AVID sells (and I don't remember what brand they are), and a few Techniks (which are made in Taiwan). Both have had good runout measurements and hold the "tools" 😉just fine. My only complaint is some are just on the loose side when the nut has not been tightened, which is just annoying for manual loading (I hate it when you loosen it and your router bit ends up on the floor), but very important for this ATC.
Thank you for your videos on this product. Very helpful! Great information. I have a question about dust collection/boot. How does that work with this system please? Do you need a specific boot in order for this to work. Thanks again!
I don't currently have a dust boot that will work with this ATC. This is a problem area for most ATC's. I am planning on designing and building one that will work with this in the future.
Hi Jim. That was a very nicely done video, as usual. I'm wondering, on your issue with bits slipping out of the collets you could make some spacers out of plastic or even wood that you could drop down into the holes in the magazine for the bits to bottom out on? With the spacers being plastic or wood the bits would not get damaged. I would imagine that it would be a pain to make a selection of spacers to work for the different bit lengths. Thanks again for the video, Randy.
Hey, that is a really good idea. I think some simple foam cylinders that you could just cut off with a knife and drop in there might not be too bad of a process. I'm going to look into that and see if it works. Look for it on my next video, and thanks for the suggestion!
You Can use heat shrink behind the endmill. I do this on smaller endmill 3, 4 and 5 :)
That way the bit is not falling out. :)
Try an o-ring, scotch tape, or a dab of super glue on the back of the end mill .
@@flakeatYes, if you have some extra shank you can do that, or if you have the cutout collets you can do that on some bits. I don't have any bits that long since they aren't typically made to stick out the top of the collet.
Hey Jim, not sure if you have said this in the past videos, does adding this take up one of your axes for the dust cover? I would hope it's more of just a trigger on/off type thing. Thanks for the great videos. Including the OPT laser videos. I got the XT-50 just before the XT8 was announced, maybe someday I'll upgrade.
They are steppers so you can connect directly to them with one of your controller axis if you want, but they also supply a stepper driver and a little micro controller board, so you can just use a regular output to trigger the lid, and an input for the IR sensor, which is what I did.
Hi Jim, great video on this ATC. Departing if you’ve already answered this, but if say I often use more than 6 different end mills, might you get a second one of these ATC’s to set up in series end to end with the first one? Or is it easy to just slip out an end mill not in use for the current project and slip in a different endmill - idea being for any one operation, keep it to 6 different end mills, killer!
Hi Ryan, good question. Most people with the traditional ATC have a lot more positions so they typically have their whole portfolio of bits loaded, probably because they are a bit of a pain to change out. This one is much quicker since you can just open the lid and pull out the collet/nut/bit and pop in a new one. So for me I think I will just keep the 6 or so bits that I use most loaded in there, and then when I need to change out for a less popular bit, i'll do it for that job.
However, if you want more bits, they make an 8 pocket version, and then there is no reason that there couldn't be 2 or more of these in use. You could just wire the lid and sensor in parallel so you don't need to use more inputs and outputs. They would have to modify the macros a little to allow for multiples, but their software guy is very good so I'm sure if they think there would be more people wanting to put multiple units on thier machine that they would add that to their SW.
They produce also a 12 position ATC...check their site
@@IceCreams62 That is only the basic one, isn't it? I don't see the premium with lid and IR sensor above 8 socket.
@@JNWoodworks Yes, but i think they can produce a premium one on request
@@IceCreams62 true, probably only limited by how wide they can make the lid work and how far the IR sensor will work.
why dont you put theauto z touch plate a lot closer? Like right next to it. Makes the whole operations always a bit faster. Thanks for the vid and cheers
That was the location I was already storing my touchplate. I have grooves milled into my spoilboard so it has a precise location to sit in, so I just programmed those coordinates for the tool setter. You are correct, if you were setting it all up fresh, you'd want it closer to the magazine.
Can you still use the auto z touch plate and corner finder for finding the xy of your project when this system is on our is it always fixed now?
ya, i can lift it out of the pocket in the spoilboard and use it on the workpeice. Its not bolted down. So I will toolset one tool, then move it over to the workpeice to set work coordinates, and then put it back and run the whole Gcode program and it will do all the remaining toolsets as it changes bits.