We all know what the CNC Milling Machine spindle is used for - to hold the tool. But it is old and boring. Everybody does that.

Here are the 6 interesting and maybe less common ways to utilize machine spindle, increase productivity and solve some problems you never thought you had.

Use your Spindle as a fan to blow chips and coolant off of your work-piece, table and fixturing.

I saw this little gadget at a local IMTS show and it was quite cool. It is installed into a tool holder like a regular cutting tool would be and at the end of the program you can call the it up and run a little table-cleaning program to make your work a lot cleaner!

Renishaw OTS tool probe cycle for HAAS can set both length and diameter offsets.

Too bad there is no choice: it only puts absolute measured diameter of the tool into D- diameter offset and makes wear offset=0

But if your programming is done with the center of the cutter, then you actually only need the difference between actual and programmed diameters of the tool.

I.E.: When probing 5/8Dia end mill, we get D=0.6248. You would normally have to subtract 5/8 from it and leave the -0.0002 difference.

But there is an easier way