Thread: Stepper motor for a power drawbar?

I am in the process of designing some sort of tool changer for my to-be-cnc'd RF-45 / HM-46.

I was thinking of using a stepper motor for a power drawbar, would this work?
You could put a pulley on the drawbar, attached by belt to a stepper with a pulley. I read you can control their torque by controlling their current.
If you placed an obstruction so that the top of the drawbar couldn't move out vertically, could you also eject tools this way?

Other options I was looking at was a TTS tool changer which would involve getting an R8 spindle (no idea on where to get this), but this would allow an ATC.
Or you could just replace the entire head and put on a specialised ATC ISO30 spindle with pull studs but this is obviously $$$$$ and time.

Honestly an ATC is just glitter on an rf45, I would get the rest of the conversion sorted then see how sick of manual changes you get. But your general idea seems sound enough.

Originally Posted by j3dprints

Other options I was looking at was a TTS tool changer which would involve getting an R8 spindle (no idea on where to get this)

Tormach also make a collet for MT3
https://littlemachineshop.com/produc...2455&category=