Quick-Change Tooling Systems for Deep Hole Drilling
Tool change time on a deep hole drilling machine gets overlooked because the drilling cycle itself is long. A typical BTA drilling cycle might run five to fifteen minutes, so a three-minute tool change seems insignificant. But add up thirty tool changes per shift across three shifts and suddenly you are losing 4.5 hours of spindle time per day. Quick-change tooling addresses exactly this hidden productivity drain. The Cost of Conventional Tool Changes On a standard machine, changing a gun drill or BTA drill head involves stopping the spindle, retracting the tool past the guide bushing, loosening set screws or a drawbar mechanism, pulling the tool, inserting the new one, tightening, resetting coolant pressure, and restarting. I have timed this at 4.5 to 8 minutes for a competent operator on a typical machine. ...