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Adding air blast to tsc?

Stirling

Hot Rolled
Joined
Dec 11, 2013
Location
Alberta canada
Has anyone added a through tool air blast to their machine after the fact? DIY?
I have tsc and would love to add a through spindle air blast option for steel hsm cutting and for cleaning cycles.

Would this be easy? Or would I wreck the mechanical seal or backfired into the coolant?!?

I would love any input on this
If I do this I will document to help others

On another note.
Running high speed hsm lathe the chips come off hot! Anyone have tips on them not melting/damaging the axis cover seals?
 
A couple of comments:

(1) since the TSC on Haas machines has an air purge phase when TSC is turned off, the good news is you likely have air to the TSC union already.

(2) I suspect/conjecture that some TSC unions may rely on the coolant to lubricate the rotating contact surfaces, so running them dry could accelerate wear, perhaps dramatically. Not sure if Haas presently uses a different TSC union on machines with TSC only, vs machines with TSC and TAB. Since TAB (through-tool air blast) is an option, maybe all their TSC unions run dry ok. Was TAB an option when your machine was built?

(3) With TAB turned on, our DM-1's TSC union makes unhappy noises as the spindle accelerates. This does not happen with TSC. We engage the TAB prior to starting the spindle but the TSC union is apparently still settling into place as the spindle is accelerating. For this reason we now have an M-code defined to engage the TAB and then delay by 500 milliseconds.

(4) Hot chips = good, right, since the heat generated by the cutting action is being taken away in the chips rather than heating the cutter or workpiece. We've not had an issue with that damaging the wiper seals on the way covers, even with little titanium fires here and there. I can see that it deserves concern however.
 
My machine is a 2009 vf-2
Hot chip wise, I have just noticed a pile up of chips melted/stuck to the rubber section of the way cover. Nothing to cry about, but something I wanted input on. Though I’ve never had a fire in the machine!!!

I suppose one could add a second line and solenoid valve to the air purge and it would blast upon m code command. That would be pretty straight forward. Though the idea of accelerated wear does not sound great.
It is a belt driven spindle so at least a coolant leak would not soak the spindle motor. I am very cheap though. Hmm.

Anyone else have input?
For now I may just add an air blast line then and contact haas to see what their thoughts are.
 








 
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