We’ve just released sev­eral new prod­ucts Tormach.com that allow you ever greater flex­i­bil­ity in the way you can inter­face aux­il­iary devices like coolant pumps, mis­ters, vac­uum sys­tems, etc. with your PCNC mill.

The first of these is called the Switch­able Con­ve­nience Out­let Kit (PN 33043).  Tor­mach PCNC mills can be used with either auto­matic or man­ual coolant con­trol.  The AC power for the coolant pump is posi­tioned in a well pro­tected area, under the machine cab­i­net.  Unfor­tu­nately, being well pro­tected also means it’s a bit incon­ve­nient if you want to do some­thing like switch from stan­dard flood coolant to a Fog Buster coolant system.

The con­ve­nience out­let kit brings an out­let near the front of the machine stand and pro­vides a switch that man­u­ally switches coolant power to either the inter­nal pump or to the out­let.  You can use the G code con­trols (M8 coolant on, M9 coolant off) to con­trol either sys­tem by sim­ply flip­ping a switch.

With the release of this kit, the Tor­mach tech sup­port group voiced a few con­cerns, which lead to some sup­port­ing prod­ucts.  Per­haps their main con­cern was the fact that a com­mon tech sup­port com­plaint comes up when some­one plugs a device into the coolant out­let that requires more power than the cir­cuit is intended for, like a Shop Vac or Vac­uum Pump.

This lead to the devel­op­ment of another kit, the Exter­nal Power Con­tac­tor Kit (PN 33044).  With the exter­nal power con­tac­tor kit, the power pro­vided at the out­let is used to power a relay con­tac­tor capa­ble of han­dling con­sid­er­ably more power.  If you want to use a 500 watt sump pump for coolant, that’s what you’ll need.  The power con­tac­tor can han­dle just about any 120 VAC load you have, so if you want to inte­grated machine con­trol via G code for your shop vac­uum, vac­uum pump, or some other device, the power con­tac­tor kit will do that for you.

Another issue that arises is the poten­tial for EMI and elec­tri­cal noise inter­fer­ence when build­ing up new con­fig­u­ra­tions for con­trol.  This is always a con­cern when switch­ing coils, motors, or other large cur­rent devices.  We’ve devel­oped Ser­vice Bul­letin 39 to help iden­tify prob­lems that might result from elec­tri­cal inter­fer­ence and the new Elec­tri­cal Noise Sup­pres­sion Kit (PN 33059) to help resolve prob­lems cre­ated by elec­tri­cal noise.

On a final note, please be aware that these kits are much more “user involved” than some other prod­ucts we sell.  They are really no more than a set of parts and instruc­tions for assem­bly.  The Exter­nal Power Power Con­tac­tor kit also requires that you mill out the holes in the plas­tic enclo­sure which are required to mount the parts.  It’s not dif­fi­cult work, but it is more than bolt­ing an acces­sory to the machine.

Be Socia­ble, Share!

• 

About Greg Jack­son

After nearly three decades of machine design, research, and devel­op­ment, Greg Jack­son founded Tor­mach LLC, a pre­mier man­u­fac­turer of afford­able CNC mills and acces­sories. Since its incep­tion in 2002, Tor­mach has grown from a garage busi­ness to a global oper­a­tion based out of Wau­na­kee, Wis­con­sin. Jack­son holds both a BS and MS in Mechan­i­cal Engi­neer­ing from the Uni­ver­sity of Wis­con­sin, Madi­son and has been awarded 4 US patents.