chinese atc spindle ?

[voyager1972]

i have been looking at a chinese atc spinde " square type " 4.5kw on ebay

has anyone used these type on therer build.......any advice or info would be appreciated......thanks

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/4-5KW-BT3...9bde%7Ciid%3A1

[JAZZCNC]

I've not used the air-cooled but I have the Water-cooled version from this seller, in fact, I've just fit 3Kw BT30 model to a machine.

They come with a Fulling 3.7Kw VFD which was a bit of a bear to set up, mostly due to fact the manual gave misleading Info but after a bit of messing around with various settings, I got it working nicely. The manual is actually quite good for a Chinese VFD, probably the best I've seen but like most VFD manuals unless you have experience with VFD's, which I do, they can be hard to get your head around. As Chinese VFD's go it's about as good you'll get and I'm happy enough with, much easier to work on and wire than the Huanyang's because the whole front comes off to give full access to wire terminals, got better cable management as well.

The spindle itself is nice and smooth. The taper is good and the drawbar gets a nice strong grip and releases the tool holder nicely. Taper as Air purge for cleaning and there's separate air curtain to keep dust out of bearings while running.
There are two sensors (PNP) one to detect when the drawbar is open/closed and the other to detect if a tool holder is in the spindle. Also a Temp sensor.

It's quite heavy, think it's about 18Kg. It comes very well packaged in a nice strong wooden case.

For the money I don't think could ask or expect better. Don't get me wrong it's not in the same league as an HSD or Elte. But you could buy 2 or 3 sets for the same price as one HSD spindle alone.

When I've got the machine finished I'll post a video.

[voyager1972]

i have a 10*5 chinese machine with a 4.5kw spindle,,,running mach3,,,,,the machine works great with the only issues being user error,,,,,i want to upgrade to atc ,,the constant changing and zeroing of cutters is getting to be a pain.....ive added an image of my machine,,,,,,im not sure of the weight of my current spindle or if the gantry would be suitable for the atc spindle,,,,im also thinking of upgrading the chinese controller to the axxb-e running uccnc. any advice would be much appreciated.

[JAZZCNC]

Well, wouldn't worry about the gantry not being suitable because it's more than strong enough. However, because the rails don't go all the way to the ends then you would have to use a wine rack type tool holder on the end or down the side of the machine rather than a carousel type off the side. That said Wine rack type is much simpler and easier to deal with regards setting up the tool change macro.

The only issue you may face is if the weight of the spindle is too much for the X-axis motor when in use or when parked the Z axis dropping. May require a larger motor or break on the motor if it does.

Regards the AXXB-E then it's limited on the amount of I/O it provides so you'll need to work out exactly how much I/O you need for the whole machine first. If you have Limits and Homes etc then probably won't have enough Inputs and will be very close with the outputs if you let the machine control vacuum or air blower.

The spindle I'm fitting requires 5 outputs 5 inputs. These are just for the spindle to operate correctly and safely and don't include the Analog Outputs for speed control. They break down into the following.
Out1 = Drawbar solenoid
Out 2 = Taper cleaning solenoid
Out 3 = Air bearing purge solenoid
Out 4 = Dust hood retract solenoid. ( Needed if using dust shoe to allow access to slide in tool holders when changing tools)
Out5 = Spindle On/Off

Input1 = Draw-bar Open/close
input2 = Tool holder inside spindle
input3 = Air pressure sensor for safety.
input4 = Tool measure gauge. (optional but advised)
Input5 = VFD fault.

Also, be aware that you'll need to create a Custom M6 tool change macro to suit your setup. Mach3 doesn't come with ATC macros and I don't think UCCNC does either so you'll need to create one or modify someone else's if you can find someone willing to share.

The main point I'm trying to make telling you this is that it's not just a case of bolt-on an ATC spindle and away you go. There's more going on behind the scenes than people realize and it all needs to work perfectly and safely otherwise a lot of damage can be done.! . . . But well worth the effort.

[voyager1972]

thanks for the reply and advice,,,,,,what controllers/breakout boards would you recomend for an atc spindle setup,,,,,the controller in the machine is a chinese MKX -IV,,,,,,

[JAZZCNC]

thanks for the reply and advice,,,,,,what controllers/breakout boards would you recomend for an atc spindle setup,,,,,the controller in the machine is a chinese MKX -IV,,,,,,

The UC300ETH with UB1 breakout board is a good combination and will work with both Mach3/4 and UCCNC. This will give you enough I/O to do whatever you like.

The CSlabs controllers are very good but expensive for the higher end models which have enough I/O. They work with Mach3/4 and they also have there own software which is still in development and needs to grow before I'd use it.
The machine I'm fitting this spindle to is using Cslabs IP-S model controller.

There are several others I could mention that will easily do what you need with only differences when working being mostly visual but to explain the differences and which I think is better than the other and why would take a very long post so I won't go there.

The main requirement is you pick one with enough I/O to allow ATC. However, whichever controller you go with you'll still need to write a custom M6 tool-change macro that suits the configuration of your machine or modify an existing one because each machine is slightly different.

[Voicecoil]

BTW, a few weeks ago when I was searching CNCDrive's website for some help I found a page full of plugins/macros - some from themselves, some from 3rd parties; might be worth a look to see if there's any tool change stuff there. Sadly I didn't bookmark it If you can't find it email Balazs at CNCDrive, he's pretty good at responding.

[NordicCnc]

I've not used the air-cooled but I have the Water-cooled version from this seller, in fact, I've just fit 3Kw BT30 model to a machine.

They come with a Fulling 3.7Kw VFD which was a bit of a bear to set up, mostly due to fact the manual gave misleading Info but after a bit of messing around with various settings, I got it working nicely. The manual is actually quite good for a Chinese VFD, probably the best I've seen but like most VFD manuals unless you have experience with VFD's, which I do, they can be hard to get your head around. As Chinese VFD's go it's about as good you'll get and I'm happy enough with, much easier to work on and wire than the Huanyang's because the whole front comes off to give full access to wire terminals, got better cable management as well.

The spindle itself is nice and smooth. The taper is good and the drawbar gets a nice strong grip and releases the tool holder nicely. Taper as Air purge for cleaning and there's separate air curtain to keep dust out of bearings while running.
There are two sensors (PNP) one to detect when the drawbar is open/closed and the other to detect if a tool holder is in the spindle. Also a Temp sensor.

It's quite heavy, think it's about 18Kg. It comes very well packaged in a nice strong wooden case.

For the money I don't think could ask or expect better. Don't get me wrong it's not in the same league as an HSD or Elte. But you could buy 2 or 3 sets for the same price as one HSD spindle alone.

When I've got the machine finished I'll post a video.

Is this a 220V spindle? If yes, I think I managed to find it in their ebay shop: https://www.ebay.com/itm/264448370955?ul_noapp=true

Is the spindle with or without drive keys for the BT30 interface? According to their pictures it is without drive keys, which I can imagine won't be a problem for high speed milling with lighter cuts.

[JAZZCNC]

Yes, the Spindle is 220V and it doesn't have any drive keys, very few of the lower end ATC router spindles have them. This machine won't ever use large tooling other than surface cutter which will be light cuts so it's not a problem.

Here's a quick and dirty Video of it changing tools, tool change time is on low for testing purposes but I'll tweak the macro and bump it up when I'm happy it's all aligned properly, still got bit of tweaking to do.

Excuse the wires and pipes hanging down everywhere the machines still very much a work in progress. The Z-axis will have a cover and all the pipes/wires, etc will be trimmed to length and in trunking. The bed as still got to be cut for the Vacuum bed and surfaced but will be left until last after everything is buttoned up and the extraction system is connected. The chips from HDPE are a nightmare and stick-like Sh#T to a blanket so it's a must.

Oh and before anyone says it NO I haven't held camera wrong way up.? It's a Vertical machine.!

[NordicCnc]

Yes, the Spindle is 220V and it doesn't have any drive keys, very few of the lower end ATC router spindles have them. This machine won't ever use large tooling other than surface cutter which will be light cuts so it's not a problem.

Here's a quick and dirty Video of it changing tools, tool change time is on low for testing purposes but I'll tweak the macro and bump it up when I'm happy it's all aligned properly, still got bit of tweaking to do.

Excuse the wires and pipes hanging down everywhere the machines still very much a work in progress. The Z-axis will have a cover and all the pipes/wires, etc will be trimmed to length and in trunking. The bed as still got to be cut for the Vacuum bed and surfaced but will be left until last after everything is buttoned up and the extraction system is connected. The chips from HDPE are a nightmare and stick-like Sh#T to a blanket so it's a must.

Oh and before anyone says it NO I haven't held camera wrong way up.? It's a Vertical machine.!

Looks good man! That vertical mill is cool, I have never seen a DIY version of that before. The customer must have some funny requirements of footprint vs work area!

Did you have to use any counter weight or gas spring on the X-axis?

I am also looking at ATC spindles right now and I have narrowed down my options to two spindles. It will either be the Jianken JGL-100 3.2kW with ISO25 tool interface, or this Rattm Motors RTM100 3kW with BT30. Both are approximately the same price also. I've compared the two (JGL vs RTM):

- 3.2kW vs 3kW
- 4 poles 800hz (2 poles 400hz available) vs 2 poles 400hz
- 4 bearings vs 3 bearings
-1 4.8kg vs 19kg
- ISO25 vs BT30
- 1.27Nm (not sure if this is rated or peak torque) vs 1.9Nm (1.4Nm rated torque)
- 358mm length vs 406mm length

So to the conclusion:

The JGL has lots of positive youtube reviews and is 22% lighter compared to the RTM. The ISO25 tool interface is quite rare compared to BT30. The RTM has no reviews except one 1.8kW ATC spindle video on youtube. Your review is good and so far only shows good things about the spindle. BT30 tool interface is more common than ISO25. Shipping for the RTM is free from VAT since it is within EU!

I am leaning towards getting the RTM spindle at the moment, simply because of the BT30.

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