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Manually loading Tools in a VF with 20 tool changer

slipalong

Plastic
Joined
Mar 26, 2019
Guy's,

My tool changer is getting a little full on a particular job so I wanted to move the probe and some of the single use tools out of the change and get the operator to manually load then when prompted by the control.

Ive tried T21 M6 and get an invalid tool number alarm. Is there a way to do this. Its a very old machine with version 9 code though. I can see the tool table has 40 plus tool offsets so Im assuming it is possible to use them.

Thanks,

Ian.
 
Put an M00 in the program and change tool 1 to the tool you need to use. Don't call up T21, call T1 but use H21 as the offset. You can't use tools other than 1 - 20, but you can use many offsets.
 
Dont know how to make it happen in that machine.
You may want to re-think manually loading the probe (if I understand that correctly).
Its an opportunity to to screw up the probe
 
#500 = 0.;
(Stop program, prompt user to change tool in spindle manually);
M109 P500 (Change tool to T99, press Y to continue.);
IF [#500 NEQ 89.] M30 (User pressed something other than Y, end program);
(User changed tool and pressed Y, continue program);
G43 H99 (Call tool offset 99 without doing tool change);
 
I agree with keeping the probe in the tool changer... Even if your probe is calibrated and dialed in, messing up the orientation can become an issue since it has 3 points of significant compensation typically....

As the icarus and Machineit2 mentioned... you should do this in your program.

Best idea would be if you have a cat40(or whatever taper your machine has) rack/cart and label the specific tools you are using. Then change your program to have a programmable alarm with message and have the machinist manually change the tool. If you no longer use any of the previous tools, you can have them change the respective tools. Best bet is writing a program that makes the machinists job easiest.
 








 
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