Lathe ATC Options?

[Ross77]

Im looking for the best option for an ATC from my CNC lathe, its basically a Myford ml10 with just the tee slot table.

Struggling to find any for sale and seen a few plans with two different designs for the holding mech. Some use a ratchet and pawl rotating in one direction and others have a toothed ring and have to push the plate forward to rotate to the next position.

Which option is best?

Lastly any plans for a suitable one? Cheers

[Chaz]

There are some on GrabCAD worth looking at.

Effectively you have 4 options.

Manual stuff like Multigrip / Dickson holders.
Gang Tooling, might be worth a look pending what type of stuff you turn.
Turret - rachet / pawl
Turret - pnuematic (or similar) locator function

There is a guy on ebay making very decent looking turrets - sells them for around £500 ish. The only reason I havent bought is that they do max 10mm tools and Id like larger for my lathe.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Diy-cnc-l...wAAOSwK~RZ-JvI

Not seen him list them like this (in kit form) before.

Spoken to him extensively on whatsup, does this for day job too, seems to know his stuff, worth a look. He also has a gang tool setup for sale but might be too big for a Myford.

[magicniner]

There is a guy on ebay making very decent looking turrets - sells them for around £500 ish. The only reason I havent bought is that they do max 10mm tools and Id like larger for my lathe.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Diy-cnc-l...wAAOSwK~RZ-JvI

Not seen him list them like this (in kit form) before.

Spoken to him extensively on whatsup, does this for day job too, seems to know his stuff, worth a look. He also has a gang tool setup for sale but might be too big for a Myford.

The turning tool holders look easy to make in a larger size?

[Chaz]

The turning tool holders look easy to make in a larger size?

Perhaps. Ive not seen the kit broken down like this before. It might be where the 'centreline' is effectively which is more challenging.

[magicniner]

Perhaps. Ive not seen the kit broken down like this before. It might be where the 'centreline' is effectively which is more challenging.

Given that they mount in the same holes as drilling and boring tool mounting holes then the centre line is the mounting hole centre line, no challenge! ;-)

[Chaz]

Given that they mount in the same holes as drilling and boring tool mounting holes then the centre line is the mounting hole centre line, no challenge! ;-)

True. Spoken to him, he will likely be able to mod these to go to 12mm. I can then probably make my own later if I want to go to 16 or 20mm tooling.

[pistolknight]

Hi Ross, your toolchanger looks really sturdy. Did you make this to an existing design or is it all new? I would love to make one for my Denford Easiturn as I'm getting fed up changing tools every few minutes!

Best Regards

David

[Ross77]

Hi David, Thanks, it is rock solid and really happy with it.

Yes it was all designed and built from scratch. It was joint project between me and friend and was a lot of work to get it finished. he had the denford one with the ratchet and pawl design but it wasn't ridged enough so we set about a more industrial option using the Hurth coupling. Most of the DIY ones we looked at had the problem of making the shaft really tight when the Bellville's were compressed to open it and needed a massive stepper to then rotate the tool plate.

Ours works differently and when the Bellville's are compressed the shaft is free to turn by hand and allowed a small nema 17 stepper to spin the plate.

There was talk of doing a small production run of them so I'm not sure if I could post up the plans yet.

[kfm]

Hi Ross

have you progressed the idea of a production run of the tool changer? Have just started to renovate an 1980's ORAC, which came without an ATC and am weighing up different options at the moment.

[Ross77]

Hi Ross

have you progressed the idea of a production run of the tool changer? Have just started to renovate an 1980's ORAC, which came without an ATC and am weighing up different options at the moment.

No not at the moment, but if there is interest then it might spur us on. Congrats on the Orac, nice lathes.