Re: Acorn ATC Interface
Posted: Sat Jan 06, 2018 10:29 pm
Wow, thank you for that. That is amazing.
The ATC is pretty much self-contained, and self-controlled, with its own on-board ARM-based controller. All of the electronics, except the 12V/30A power supply, are mounted inside the carousel housing. It only needs to be told which tool to load, and it does the entire toolchange by itself, including operating the power drawbar. It can be commanded by simple commands send over RS232, Ethernet/telnet, a web browser, USB, its own front panel, and several other interfaces. The arm, lift and carousel are all controlled by servo motors, and it contains numerous sensors, so it can detect nearly any fault. If a fault is found, it will generally retry the failed operation, and, if several retries do not yield success, throw an error message to the user, telling him what went wrong. It does it's own logical-to-physical tool mapping, and also supports tools that require manual loading, like reversing tapping heads, or tools that are too large for the carousel. The power drawbar uses a DC motor and high-ratio gearbox to actually torque the drawbar to 30 ft-lbs, rather than depending on a stack of Belleville springs to provide enough tension. For cost reasons, it uses Tormach TTS toolholders, so it can be adapted to almost any machine that can accept 3/4" straight-shank toolholders.
Regards,
Ray L.