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GCnC FAB-Matic ATC40

Posted: Thu May 14, 2020 3:41 pm
by Gary Campbell
I finally got some time a way from paying projects and building on this machine to post a few pics. It's on an all steel imported frame with 25 series linear rails and helical R & P drives XY and 25mm ballscrew on the Z. Power is by Teknic ClearPath Servos thru 5:1 SureGear planetary's, then 3.2:1 25mm belt reduction. This is an overall 16:1 reduction ratio, close to 5 turns per inch. Z is 1.5:1 reduction to a 10mm pitch ballscrew, around 3.8 turns per inch. Two air cylinders on a regulator provide counterbalance for the Z.

Spindle is a 4hp, 4 pole, 12,000 rpm ATC with an encoder running on a Hitachi P1 SJ using Sensorless Vector Control. I have had good torque results in testing down to 400 rpm, but have more work to do on tuning. Eventual goal is to swap all my drill and tap operations to this machine.

The frame shipped with a 51" square work area, which I have modified into a 50" (X) by 28" (Y) work area that has 4 machinists vises for workholding and a 10" high chip containment enclosure. Enclosure is 16ga steel with a 6" strip of cooler curtain on the top. The balance of the work area is for tool storage. 40 ISO30 tool holders in forks can be utilized in any given file. To conserve space the tool racks are configured to load both positive and negative Y from 2 center "aisles". The chip confinement enclosure height made it necessary to make a small slot in the cooler strip and restrict tool movement in and out of the cutting area to one location. These requirements made the toolchange macro a bit more complicated than usual.

I have added a shop built coolant system that uses air, air with mist, or air with tap oil that is temporarily installed using only mist and air until a retraction system can be built to allow mist with tool changes.

Control is by Centroid Acorn with the ETH1616 expansion board and currently all but a couple inputs and outputs are in use. Here are a few pics and I will add some cutting videos at a later date.
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Re: GCnC FAB-Matic ATC40

Posted: Thu May 28, 2020 6:30 am
by cnckeith
Nice, first class!!