Manual Spindle Swapping

I have seen one design for an automatic tool changer that had an automatic swapping mechanism for just switching our router spindles. Does anyone have a version of that where the spindles can easily be swapped manually? basically the same design but modified for manually locking and unlocking it to the core.
Here’s that auto swap design for reference. MPCNC Automatic Tool Changer by Jamie_K - Thingiverse

Did @jamiek ever get it to work? I can’t remember. :thinking: But if you want a crazy contraption, he’s the right person to talk to at least. :smile:

He has videos on thingiverse or it working. The machine moving over and picking up each tool on its own and everything. It’s really impressive looking, I just don’t want to mess with adding any more electronics or editing the firmware to control all the tool change stuff.

If I could just lift off each tool and manually lock in the next one in I would be happy.

It worked well enough for a demo but I’m not sure I would trust it for high reliability for a lot of cycles.

Latching manually is an easier problem because reliability is taken care of if the person is awake.

Having said that, I’m not aware of a published quick-change mechanism other than Doug’s magnetic tool holder, which is aimed more at accessories than spindles. I think a quick change mechanism for spindles would be cool to have as an option.

Well i certainly don’t have the guts to let it run when i’m asleep.

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