CAT Toolholders:As a major user of machine tools with automatic tool changers, Caterpillar Inc. championed the standardization of steep taper toolholders in North America. These toolholders utilize interchangeable pull studs with imperial threads, and feature a v-groove in the flange for the ATC arms to grip. This groove is why CAT toolholders are occasionally referred to as v-flange.
HI Gabe Yes, sorry to leave the 30 tapper folks out. My mistake and I didn't catch it until mid upload. There are manual machines and even some personal CNC machines that use 30 tapper. But it is not as common as 40, 50, and HSK is becoming.
for a spindle that will be used to rough-cut steels using a BT20 tool holders, what type of Tooth Finish and Heat Treatment for spur gear and what material would you recommend, and should is First class commercial gears, Carefully cut gears or Precision gears
Sorry about the judgement comment, it is an old saying relating to a young man asking an older man how he got good judgment which the old man told the young man came from experience which of course came from bad judgment. Never making a mistake often means there are things you don't know you don't know out there. Enough already. Yes, having someone who has done machine maintenance is invaluable and you are making a tremendous amount of judgment(er, experience) available that has been hard to find previously. Where else do you find STP mixed with grease.? Thanks for the comment on the price, again that is very helpful to those of us starting CNC. Dennis L.
No worries, I screw things up all the time! Now I just know how to fix them! It started way back when I wiped something out call "config.sys" and "autoexe.bat" See how many people know what those are ;). Yeah, the STP and grease thing is slicker then snot, I tried it. To bad I found that one out AFTER I did all the draw bar maintenance. Next time that is whats going in on my machine. As of right now, for small to mid sized Fadal machines, in my opinion, your going to be in the 15k to 20k range. If you buy a turn key machine that someone already went through, or if you buy a clunker and do all the work your self, then end price is pretty close to the same. All depends what you have more of, capital or labor.
Excellent as always, first place I have seen this explained. Where did you get all the information? Is it in the manuals? In describing your experience with the balls you have validated experience is the result of bad judgment. Thanks so much for sharing. I placed bids on a machine similar to yours, final bid, not mine was about $4,600. Machines in the twin cities seem to be used in high tech manufacturing and maybe have better care and less wear. I will support when your site comes up on Patreon. Excellent. Dennis L.
Hi Dennis The experience depends on the topic. If it is related to my machine its first hand. Some is manuals, but a lot is the fact I have a good friend that has done machine maintenance all his life. We have lunch together often and the transfer of knowledge is priceless and invaluable. I talked to him about making this channel ahead of time and he liked the idea. I wouldn't say the issue with my draw bar was bad judgement, but more the lack of going over every single part in the machine up front. It was not until the perfect storm of a little lower in air pressure, combined with a slight tapper lock, with the miss adjusted limit switch, did the problem show up. It was probably like that for years. But like I said in another video, we all screw up sometime, may as well let others learn without needing to spend the $500 repair bill! If the machine starts up and runs $4600 is a song in my opinion. I would have kept bidding. I paid more for my fixer upper! Thank you, I talked to my accountant about it and we are going to do it. Most likely this weekend or next week you should see it show up. I'll make a plug video. I'm also working with my partner who runs the other side of At-Man to get us some stuff ;) Tim
Do you have a video on changing the spindle bearings? If you do could you direct me to it? Im staring to get spindle bearing noise, and I need to change them at some point soon.
I do not, and I decided I never will. Just pricing out the bearings alone is just under $1000 US. If you get the slightest amount of contamination, over grease them, set the preload wrong, they last about a week before they are junk again. Unless you have a lot of experience with critical high speed bearings I would highly recommend getting a rebuilt replacement cartridge.
Great video! I have a used '98 fadal 4020 with 10k rmp spindle. I noticed that after a heavy cut the toolholder is ejected with really too much force. There is something i can do or is it normal? thanks
What you are probably seeing is tapper lock. It is a known issue with CAT 40 tooling. Some spindle designs do it worse then others. I have had it happen a few times. Only thing you can really do about it is making sure your tool holders are in good shape and getting a new spindle. Some of the rebuild shops are grinding the tapper slightly different to help with tapper lock issues.
I'm replacing the draw bar on a 1997 6030 machine now. Our purchaser bought the aftermarket kit, which seems to be for a coolant thru spindle. There seems to be lots of o-rings that don't seem necessary for the machine. The floater didn't come out, and I think it may be jammed up inside the spindle. I tried replacing the drawbar with the old floater still in there, but the mangled floater seems to be preventing the drawbar from positioning correctly. I'm hoping I don't have to pull the spindle off to get the old floater out. Anyone know of a machine repair service in NY Hudson Valley area that works on Fadals?
I have Fadal 4020A with 7.5k spindle. Is it easy to replace the belleville washers? Looks like my machine has the broken ones, pulling force is very weak. Is it need some special tools for disassembling the tool retention?
You will either need to buy the tool or you can make it. A harmonic balancer puller (automotive tool) can be used to compress the draw bar. You need a tool that will sit on the retainer and allow the puller to push down on it. Be very careful, if it lets go for what ever reason there is enough force in that spring to cause serious injury and death. Fadalcnc.com has the manuals and some videos with the procedure.
ipadize, its all about the "spring rate" constant of the spring. That is for every X amount of distance a spring will generate Y amount of force. If you have a 2N/1mm spring and you compress it by 5mm you will get 10N. If you add another spring in parallel so that both ends of the springs are in contact with the same mating surfaces the spring rate will be summed. So 2 springs in parallel compressed to 5mm will give 20N of force total. If you take two springs connected to each other and put them in series the spring rate changes by 1/K=1/K1+1/K2 so 1/2N+1/2N=1N/1mm. In our example of 5mm compression you get 5N with two springs in series. In the case of draw bars and the bellvel washer stack, this is to lower the very high spring rate so that the draw bar can move far enough to release the tool without bottoming out the springs.
I had a typo in my reply, I edited it to correct it. For Series springs the correct formula is 1/K total=1/K1 + 1/K2 + 1/K3....... K= spring constant in Force per unit of distance. I missed the reciprocal of the total in my original reply but it did not effect the example because the resultant spring rate was 1.
Thanks Dylan, I have never heard of the reference to Caterpillar, and no one has corrected me before. Looking at that more specifically it seems to reference the V groove design at the bottom of the holder. The "40" steep taper has been around a LONG time. I could not find any reference on when it came about or what roll Caterpillar played in it. Is it really referencing the heavy equipment company? Do you know of any references or history behind it? Thanks for pointing it out, I'm still getting schooled everyday, makes us all better at what we do.
CAT tooling, sometimes called V-Flange Tooling, is the oldest and probably most common type in the USA. CAT tooling was invented by Caterpillar Inc. of Peoria, Illinois, in order to standardize the tooling used on their machinery. that's on wiki
I don't know if Caterpillar invented it per say, they may have added the V groove to allow for automated tool changing. I will try to do more research on it and get the history. Check out this patent US 1794361 A, that is basically a steep taper tool holder back in 1931 with 3 companies listed jointly.
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Excellent straightforward explanation of a complicated engineering sequence. .
CAT Toolholders:As a major user of machine tools with automatic tool changers, Caterpillar Inc. championed the standardization of steep taper toolholders in North America. These toolholders utilize interchangeable pull studs with imperial threads, and feature a v-groove in the flange for the ATC arms to grip. This groove is why CAT toolholders are occasionally referred to as v-flange.
great information, thanks! my machine is a bt30, a lot of the drill mills like mine use the smaller 30 taper.
HI Gabe
Yes, sorry to leave the 30 tapper folks out. My mistake and I didn't catch it until mid upload. There are manual machines and even some personal CNC machines that use 30 tapper. But it is not as common as 40, 50, and HSK is becoming.
for a spindle that will be used to rough-cut steels using a BT20 tool holders, what type of Tooth Finish and Heat Treatment for spur gear and what material would you recommend, and should is First class commercial
gears, Carefully cut gears or Precision gears
What is the main advantages of having integrated spindle in 5 axis CNC machines as you mentioned?
Sorry about the judgement comment, it is an old saying relating to a young man asking an older man how he got good judgment which the old man told the young man came from experience which of course came from bad judgment. Never making a mistake often means there are things you don't know you don't know out there. Enough already.
Yes, having someone who has done machine maintenance is invaluable and you are making a tremendous amount of judgment(er, experience) available that has been hard to find previously. Where else do you find STP mixed with grease.?
Thanks for the comment on the price, again that is very helpful to those of us starting CNC.
Dennis L.
No worries, I screw things up all the time! Now I just know how to fix them! It started way back when I wiped something out call "config.sys" and "autoexe.bat" See how many people know what those are ;).
Yeah, the STP and grease thing is slicker then snot, I tried it. To bad I found that one out AFTER I did all the draw bar maintenance. Next time that is whats going in on my machine.
As of right now, for small to mid sized Fadal machines, in my opinion, your going to be in the 15k to 20k range. If you buy a turn key machine that someone already went through, or if you buy a clunker and do all the work your self, then end price is pretty close to the same. All depends what you have more of, capital or labor.
Excellent as always, first place I have seen this explained. Where did you get all the information? Is it in the manuals? In describing your experience with the balls you have validated experience is the result of bad judgment. Thanks so much for sharing.
I placed bids on a machine similar to yours, final bid, not mine was about $4,600. Machines in the twin cities seem to be used in high tech manufacturing and maybe have better care and less wear.
I will support when your site comes up on Patreon. Excellent.
Dennis L.
Hi Dennis
The experience depends on the topic. If it is related to my machine its first hand. Some is manuals, but a lot is the fact I have a good friend that has done machine maintenance all his life. We have lunch together often and the transfer of knowledge is priceless and invaluable. I talked to him about making this channel ahead of time and he liked the idea. I wouldn't say the issue with my draw bar was bad judgement, but more the lack of going over every single part in the machine up front. It was not until the perfect storm of a little lower in air pressure, combined with a slight tapper lock, with the miss adjusted limit switch, did the problem show up. It was probably like that for years. But like I said in another video, we all screw up sometime, may as well let others learn without needing to spend the $500 repair bill!
If the machine starts up and runs $4600 is a song in my opinion. I would have kept bidding. I paid more for my fixer upper!
Thank you, I talked to my accountant about it and we are going to do it. Most likely this weekend or next week you should see it show up. I'll make a plug video. I'm also working with my partner who runs the other side of At-Man to get us some stuff ;)
Tim
Beautiful
When the draw bar pulls back up how do the ball not fall out on the inner area? As in what is keeping them in place on either side
Do you have a video on changing the spindle bearings? If you do could you direct me to it? Im staring to get spindle bearing noise, and I need to change them at some point soon.
I do not, and I decided I never will. Just pricing out the bearings alone is just under $1000 US. If you get the slightest amount of contamination, over grease them, set the preload wrong, they last about a week before they are junk again. Unless you have a lot of experience with critical high speed bearings I would highly recommend getting a rebuilt replacement cartridge.
Great video! I have a used '98 fadal 4020 with 10k rmp spindle. I noticed that after a heavy cut the toolholder is ejected with really too much force. There is something i can do or is it normal?
thanks
What you are probably seeing is tapper lock. It is a known issue with CAT 40 tooling. Some spindle designs do it worse then others. I have had it happen a few times. Only thing you can really do about it is making sure your tool holders are in good shape and getting a new spindle. Some of the rebuild shops are grinding the tapper slightly different to help with tapper lock issues.
I'm replacing the draw bar on a 1997 6030 machine now. Our purchaser bought the aftermarket kit, which seems to be for a coolant thru spindle. There seems to be lots of o-rings that don't seem necessary for the machine.
The floater didn't come out, and I think it may be jammed up inside the spindle. I tried replacing the drawbar with the old floater still in there, but the mangled floater seems to be preventing the drawbar from positioning correctly. I'm hoping I don't have to pull the spindle off to get the old floater out. Anyone know of a machine repair service in NY Hudson Valley area that works on Fadals?
I have Fadal 4020A with 7.5k spindle. Is it easy to replace the belleville washers? Looks like my machine has the broken ones, pulling force is very weak. Is it need some special tools for disassembling the tool retention?
You will either need to buy the tool or you can make it. A harmonic balancer puller (automotive tool) can be used to compress the draw bar. You need a tool that will sit on the retainer and allow the puller to push down on it. Be very careful, if it lets go for what ever reason there is enough force in that spring to cause serious injury and death. Fadalcnc.com has the manuals and some videos with the procedure.
thanks
does the Spring force add when i use more than i spring? For example one spring has 600n Force and i have 40 of them, will the force still be 600N?
ipadize it's gonna be 40 times, don't you?
if they are side by side yes but if they are onb top of each other i dont think so
ipadize, its all about the "spring rate" constant of the spring. That is for every X amount of distance a spring will generate Y amount of force. If you have a 2N/1mm spring and you compress it by 5mm you will get 10N. If you add another spring in parallel so that both ends of the springs are in contact with the same mating surfaces the spring rate will be summed. So 2 springs in parallel compressed to 5mm will give 20N of force total. If you take two springs connected to each other and put them in series the spring rate changes by 1/K=1/K1+1/K2 so 1/2N+1/2N=1N/1mm. In our example of 5mm compression you get 5N with two springs in series. In the case of draw bars and the bellvel washer stack, this is to lower the very high spring rate so that the draw bar can move far enough to release the tool without bottoming out the springs.
thanks
I had a typo in my reply, I edited it to correct it. For Series springs the correct formula is
1/K total=1/K1 + 1/K2 + 1/K3.......
K= spring constant in Force per unit of distance.
I missed the reciprocal of the total in my original reply but it did not effect the example because the resultant spring rate was 1.
I enjoy your videos, however i have to bust you out, it's not Category 40, it's Caterpillar 40, as in Caterpillar equipment
Thanks Dylan, I have never heard of the reference to Caterpillar, and no one has corrected me before. Looking at that more specifically it seems to reference the V groove design at the bottom of the holder. The "40" steep taper has been around a LONG time. I could not find any reference on when it came about or what roll Caterpillar played in it. Is it really referencing the heavy equipment company? Do you know of any references or history behind it? Thanks for pointing it out, I'm still getting schooled everyday, makes us all better at what we do.
www.tools-n-gizmos.com/specs/Tapers.html
thats one place that has good information about most machine tapers, they also have Lathe tapers if you look
I found that one as well, they mention the name but stop there, no info on where it originated from. Thanks again, Tim
CAT tooling, sometimes called V-Flange Tooling, is the oldest and probably most common type in the USA. CAT tooling was invented by Caterpillar Inc. of Peoria, Illinois, in order to standardize the tooling used on their machinery.
that's on wiki
I don't know if Caterpillar invented it per say, they may have added the V groove to allow for automated tool changing. I will try to do more research on it and get the history. Check out this patent US 1794361 A, that is basically a steep taper tool holder back in 1931 with 3 companies listed jointly.