Tuesday, August 18, 2009

UK mould maker invests in milling/EDM

Precision Moulds and Tools Services has invested in one new VCP 800W Duro EDM and four new HSM 800 high-speed milling machines supplied by GF AgieCharmilles.

Aylesbury, UK-based injection mould tool specialist, Precision Moulds and Tools Services (PM and T), has bought from GF AgieCharmilles one VCP 800W Duro EDM and four HSM 800 high-speed milling machines.

PM and T has installed four of the machine tools at the company's 10,000ft2 facility in Aylesbury and of the HSM 800 at its manufacturing facility in Sri Lanka.

All the machines produce parts for high-precision, complex and competitively-priced mould tools (from single impression to multi-impression and twin-shot tooling).

PM and T provides a total systems service to its customers including the design, manufacture and supply of complex, high-precision tooling while working in close cooperation with customers.

In doing so, PM and T develop and design products from concept and prototype tooling, through to single impression pre-production and multi impression production tooling.

In addition, rigorous pre-production testing and sampling will be extended over the next few months through a new 2,000ft2 in-house mould validation facility, with twin-shot and three-shot mouldinhg capability, which will be housed at its Aylesbury site.

PMandT's 'concept through to completion' business approach is not essentially unique - but it has helped differentiate the company from a significant proportion of its competitors.

* Technology investments - State-of-the-art EDM and wire EDM machines, housed in a fully temperature-controlled environment, have ensured that the company can meet (and exceed) its customer's quality (accuracy, surface finish, etc) and delivery requirements.

In 2006 PM and T invested in its first VCP 800W Duro and HSM 800 3-axis milling machine from GF AgieCharmilles.

Said PM and T managing director, Michael Rush: "The machines deliver excellent performance on speed, accuracy and surface finish.

We use these mainly for machining hardened (HRC 58) intricate and micro-feature cavity inserts".

He said that the speed of the HSM 800 (36,000 rev/min, high-torque spindle capability and 40m/min rapid feeds) and its ability to deliver surface finishes of 0.2 micron Ra, and positional accuracies of +/-5 micron, have enabled PM and T to rely less and less on its more-time-consuming EDM machines to achieve desired part quality and to ensure manufacturing lead times are met.

The machine has also eliminated the need, in many instances, for costly and time-intensive hand polishing of mould tools.

Rush added: "We were so impressed with our first HSM 800 that we recently invested in a further three machines".

* About PM and T - PM and T was established in 1991 by joint managing directors Michael Rush and Paul Newton.

At a time when many UK- and European-based toolmakers were contracting or diversifying their operations away from toolmaking to precision component manufacture, PM and T was experiencing significant growth.

Its management said that recent strategic and prudent investments made in design, manufacture, sales and marketing, etc, reversed the trend as far as PM and T was concerned.

Rush said: "We study macro- and micro-market trends, we analyse customer behaviour and we 'benchmark' ourselves against the competition.

When we consider the time is right, and when we're convinced that the benefits outweigh the risks - we act decisively and make 'telling' investments".

These investments include the following.

* Purchasing advanced, high-performance machine tools.

* Opening up a new manufacturing facility in Sri Lanka.

* Building a mould validation shop at the company's Aylesbury site.

* Appointing a German-based sales representative soon to exploit business opportunities across Europe.

All of these strategic investments, reinforce PM and T's customer-focused approach to business, and have helped the company increase sales and share.

* Overseas operation - in 1998 PM and T began an overseas operation in Sri Lanka to provide the company with reliable and cost-efficient manufacturing capability that supported the company's UK operations.

Since then the business focus has changed.

Rush explained: "We made a strategic decision not to allow our Sri Lankan operation to 'play second fiddle' to what we have here in the UK.

Our intention now is to ensure that the Sri Lankan facility is as good - technically and commercially - as our UK operation".

What PM and T is doing is as follows.

* Installing high-performance machine tools including one of the recently-purchased HSM 800 machines.

* Thoroughly traing Sri Lankan technical engineers at PM and T's UK facility.

* Using high speed video conferencing for communications between the UK and Sri Lanka facilities.

PM and T sales director, Joe Boscarini, explained: "Our two facilities operate seamlessly.

All of our mould tool design and consultancy work is undertaken here in the UK - as are our sales, marketing and commercial activities.

Manufacturing and production, including mould repair and modification can be undertaken at either site to the same high quality standards.

Boscarini continued: "Our Sri Lankan facility has not only given us improved manufacturing flexibility and increased capability - it has also allowed us to better-plan our production schedules and to control our costs.

For our customers this means faster turnaround and improved delivery times, and more economic mould tool production.".

C Dugard of Hove has added a CNC horizontal boring machine to its Dugard Eagle range

C Dugard of Hove has added a CNC horizontal boring machine to its Dugard Eagle range

The machine is designed for those who require a high-specification, rigid and powerful solution for large components weighing up to five tonnes and up to 5.5m by 2.6m by 1.3m that require precision boring, milling, drilling and certain turning cycles.

The HBM-4 weighs some 22 tonnes, has a 30kW motor mounted within a heavy-duty column that is carried over its 1,600 Z-axis stroke on hardened and ground boxways having the advantage of two additional supporting ways giving maximum stability and aiding positioning accuracy.

A multi-pitch worm driven rotary table of 1,200mm by 1,500mm with one micron indexing as standard and a hydraulic clamping torque of 4.5 tonnes applied to the heavy-duty bed ensures precision indexing and rigidity.

This enables heavy cutting and tool overhang conditions such as when line-type boring operations are performed typical of the use for a machine of this type.

The spindle and sleeve assembly is supported on double rollers with ISO 50 taper to the 110mm diameter quill and the W-axis outfeed stroke is 550mm.

Driven through a high torque gearbox with oil chiller, hardened and ground gears and automatic two-speed change, the spindle revolutions available are between 35 and 3,000revs/min.

The spindle is served by a 60 tool magazine using a travelling arm tool exchange with easy access for tool loading from the rear.

The maximum tool diameter, automatically handled by the system, is 250mm by 300mm long and weighing up to 25kg.

Travel in X-axis is 2,200 mm with 1,600 mm in Y and Z axes covered at rapid traverse rates of 12m/min.

Combined axis feed rates are fully programmable between one and 5,000mm/min while the B-axis rotary table has a top speed of 8revs/min to provide a turning or profiling capability.

An auger type chip conveyor is standard with options of an angle or universal milling head, a facing head with telescopic toolholder, spindle extension sleeves and an 1,800 increment rotary table.

Control is via Fanuc 18i/20i or Heidenhain's iTNC 530.

CNC bed-type milling machine has than paid for itself in the machining

CNC bed-type milling machine has than paid for itself in the machining of the 32 tonnes of steel for tooling plates used in the robotic fabrication of prison cell doors.

Fern Engineering Systems is using an XYZ SMX 5000 manual/CNC bed mill to machine various sizes of steel tooling plate for a self-contained robotic welding cell.

The bed mill, with solid Meehanite ribbed cast iron construction and induction hardened and ground slides and Turcite-B coated ways, has been in continuous use since its installation.

Owner of Fern, Andrew Beckley said the bed mill had more than paid for itself in the machining of the 32 tonnes of steel needed to produce tooling plates for the robotic welding cell.

The welding cell is for Cell Security, which will produce different designs of cell doors destined for prisons, police stations and other security applications worldwide.

At Welding Security, the tooling plates can be changed in 10 min or less, allowing various designs of cell door to be fabricated quickly and accurately in a wide range of sizes.

Located at Whitebirk, Blackburn, Fern was set up by Andrew Beckley and Paul Jackson in January 2004.

Fern has always had a company policy to control the entire manufacturing process, which is why Fern took delivery in 2007 of the XYZ SMX 5000 manual/CNC bed mill.

The SMX 5000 has a 5.75kW (7.5HP)/5000 rev/min main spindle serving a 1930mm by 356mm table having a load capacity of 850kg.

X- and Y-axis travels are 1524mm by 596mm.

These specifications made the SMX 5000 an ideal choice for the machining of the various sizes of steel tooling plate used in Cell Security's robotic welding cell.

* Robotic welding cells - on average Fern Engineering Systems builds and ships a bespoke automated welding cell every 8.6 weeks, each one designed as a skid-mounted unit for ease of transportation and installation.

It took less than 12 weeks - from the initial enquiry from Cell Security to delivery on site - and just over 4h for the welding cell to be fully operational.

Before welding cell installation it took up to 10h for Cell Security to construct and manually weld each security door.

The robotic welding cell does the job in as little as 40 min.

Fern employs eight people and Beckley said it is important to maintain the flexibility and fast response of a small business.

This, he adds, requires every member of the team to be multi-skilled.

So, although a control engineer by training, he is equally at home developing and refining the company's proprietary Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) software or machining components for the latest project.

He said: "Engineering companies that we know do good work have XYZ machines and we took note of their recommendations when it came to our choice of machine tool".

XYZ told manufacturingtalk that it was a demonstration at XYZ Machine Tools' regional showroom in Blackburn that provided convincing evidence to Fern of the manual/CNC bed mill's metal removal capability and the ease of use of its ProtoTRAK SMX control.

This latest-generation CNC is deesigned for 'one-off' and low volume production.

The CNC uses plain English prompts and requires no learning of codes, allowing an operator with little or no CNC experience to operate the SMX 5000 within a day, said XYZ.

"It is this ease of use that really appeals," said Beckley, "As it is in line with our own business practice.

We were, for example, awarded a contract by a major automotive parts manufacturer for a system to control 71 automated welding cells after we were able to demonstrate conclusively the flexibility and cost savings achievable with our custom-written Production Management Tools software compared with more expensive off-the-shelf SCADA packages.".

Schaublin Machine Tools has supplied a medical device manufacturer with a Schaublin 48V CNC mill

Schaublin Machine Tools has supplied a medical device manufacturer with a Schaublin 48V CNC mill and Renishaw probe system to produce high-accuracy parts.

Schaublin engineers helped train Clada Medical's Raphael Blowick, to use the equipment.

Blowick, not a production engineer, faced a steep learning curve when it came to machining.

Blowick said: 'I've always liked designing parts in Solidworks.

'The problem for me has been turning those designs into physical parts.' Starting with the premise that for the medical parts he intends to make, accuracy and process consistency are more important than complexity, Blowick took advice and invested in a Schaublin 48V mill fitted with a Renishaw OMP 40 probe.

He then took the decision to go further, purchasing GibbsCAM, to turn his 3D designs into machining programs, Renishaw's Productivity Plus software, to automate the programming of probe routines, and Renishaw's CNC reporter, an SPC package used to analyse and control the production process.

He said: 'Frank Boston from Schaublin Machine Tools supplied the Schaublin 48V milling machine, together with the probe system from Renishaw.

'He introduced me to Guy Brown from GSPS, to set up the purchased software packages configured for the Schaublin 48V.' Brown installed Renishaw's Productivity Plus plug-in for GibbsCAM to integrate the creation of probing cycles with the creation of metal cutting tool paths within the Virtual Gibbs package.

A complete metal cutting process can be defined and simulated prior to machine prove-out.

Simulation provides graphical identification of the work piece and shows any potential fixture collision with cutting tools.

Productivity Plus seamlessly adds the probe moves into the simulation, so that the whole process is developed off-line.

The net result for Blowick is short and reliable prove-out times.

He said: 'The probe measures the part as part of the production cycle, with the measured data recorded by CNC Reporter, providing feedback to adjust the process and keep it within control limits.

'The great thing about it is the way it updates the tool offset - I know I can get a precision part every time, with the system automatically controlling itself.

'Brown and Boston helped me make a calibration part, incorporating most of the features I would be likely to machine.

'I know exactly what I have to do and the tools are all set up in the library, so I use it and do not need to mess around with it or change it.

'The probing moves are in there to control the process but also to verify the finished parts - if there is any variation that can be fed back to the CNC control.

'I can also get a print-out for the Q and A people or for my own records.'.

Jean Michel Vallet has built his engineering workshop by making precision components on CNC machines

Jean Michel Vallet has built his engineering workshop by making precision components on CNC machines for mostly local companies, but always with one eye on his long-held dream of building a race car.

In the early 1970s, Vallet was quick to realise the potential of CNC, investing in the first of many numerically controlled machines.

In the late 1990s, the time came to move to new premises; and it was the ideal opportunity to streamline the company's workshop.

'When we built this new factory, we had something like seven different makes of CNC machine tools,' said Vallet.

'Running the factory was complicated and inefficient.

'For the sake of productivity, we had to standardise.' In 1998, Vallet took a trip to the Paris machine tool show where, where he came across Haas CNC machine tools.

'We found the best machines for our growing company,' he added.

'All Haas machines have the same control, which means if you can program one, you can program all of them.

'Plus, they offer lots of torque, which is ideal because we often use large diameter end mills on stainless steel.' He was also impressed with the Haas fourth-axis capabilities.

The company now owns several Haas machines, including a VF-9 vertical machining centre.

Vallet began by supplying a local company making machines for bottling plants.

Today, the company's bread-and-butter work, the work which will pay for Vallet to pursue his motor racing dream, is mainly making parts for companies building food packaging and processing machines, plus some special and secretive aerospace projects.

'We make scale models of new and prototype aircraft, which are used for wind tunnel testing and are full of sensors measuring airflow and aerodynamic forces,' he said.

'We also make five-axis parts for our aerospace customers, which are actually comparatively straight forward to machine.

'The trickiest parts we make are for the food processing industry, machined from special stainless steels.

'These parts often have very tight tolerances, which is a challenge because we have to find ways of making them at the price the customer wants to pay.

'It's demanding work, which we're able to do because we use accurate but relatively low-cost machine tools.' In Vallet's busy workshop is a line of Haas machines including eight CNC vertical machining centres and five CNC turning centres.

One, a Haas VF-1, runs 24 hours a day using a Kuka robot arm to change parts.

An adjacent PC, using software designed personally by Vallet, controls the robot separately.

PCs interconnect all the machining stations, allowing managers to keep tight control of planning and scheduling.

The factory runs three shifts and 24 hours a day; 10 Haas machines running through the night with just five operators on duty.

'My aim is to create an entire racing car from just six solid blocks of aluminium, in 70 hours, using only four tools,' said Vallet.

Big blocks of aluminium, he admits, but just six, from which he intends to machine all of the major and supporting structural components, including the chassis, suspension, mounting brackets, and so on.

No castings, no extrusions, just solid parts.

'We'll buy-in brakes, glass, wheels, that sort of thing, we'll make the body from glass fibre and we'll use an Alfa Romeo V6 engine, giving 340HP,' he added.

'But otherwise, we'll make it here, on one Haas machine, in less than a week of running two shifts a day.'.

Techno CNC Routers has introduced the Pro Series CNC Router, for panel process manufacturing

Techno CNC Routers has introduced the Pro Series CNC Router, for panel process manufacturing.

The Pro Series is made of welded and stress-relieved tubing, a good foundation for Techno's precision drive system.

The Pro Series drive system features precision ball-screw drives on all three axes, THK rails and bearings and a high-speed closed-loop servomotor and drive.

The Pro Series is available in sizes ranging from 4 x 8ft to 6 x 20ft.

The Pro Series machine can be equipped with a variety of spindle options, including automatic tool changer, collet spindles, drill banks or multi-spindle setup for high-volume part production.

The Pro Series is compatible with the multiple zone vacuum table, reverse engineering lasers and four-axis rotary tables.

The Techno CNC Router also features a CNC Servo G-Code Interface that is easy to learn and operate.

This Windows-based interface is a CNC program that includes: toolpath preview with viewing tools and adjustable screens, built in G-Code editor, machine speed and spindle rpm override, X/Y axis orientation swapping, program skip ahead (in case of tool breakage), built in basic nesting and production logging.