Created some custom 3d printed tool racks (bt30 tool holders). Wanted to not remove the dust shoe so only made 4 stations. However, if a tool is not in the holders (about tool 4) it will come to the front and ask me to load or unload the tool before moving on to the next operation. I also am currently doing a tool touch off with every change. While it would be faster to keep a library I find that it doesn’t take any noticeable amount of time (in my non-production world) and means that I can swap out tools any time as well as if a tool slips it will also be accounted for.
Any feedback/suggestions welcome to improve. I still need to implement the pros sensor in the spindle to check if the tool was properly removed/captured.
I have seen tool holders like that made of two parts held together with magnets. The idea being that if you crash into them they break away instead of breaking :).
I was thinking of doing a “hole” style like this with magnets on the bottom just so I could easily remove them from my CNC spoilboard to use the full table, but still have additional pockets for when I don’t!
Cool - have you added a Tool Touch Plate? They are super nice and now I can’t live without one. If you don’t have one, I bet Avid would sell you theirs, and you could plug it in and use my macros/code with it.
I use a tool touch touch off that is part of the macro, but I also own an avid touch plate that I might implement for additional uses (rare cases when I don’t use the spoil board as 0). I was just sifting through your stuff actually, very nice! I am definitely going to try and see about using some of your work to refine/replace some of mine. Thanks for sharing!!
Cool, yeah, copy/take anything that is good! If you want to re-compile the C# source code you can download Visual Studio.
It’s a bit confusing, but Avid has their “Touch Plate” and their “Tool Touch Plate” – the Touch Plate is the one they have had forever, but the Tool Touch Plate is a new thing they added for their Ex controllers that has a fixed and dedicated position somewhere. It sounds like you have one, so you are set! You could probably just change the defines.cnc macro I have to edit where yours is. EDIT: although, that may or may not work…as Avid doesn’t use my defines.
