Improving Quality, Productivity And Tool Life With High Performance Chip Handling
Tsugami’s new LaserSwiss SS207-5AX is a 20-mm, seven-axis Swiss-type CNC lathe with two fully integrated SPI lasers, one for laser cutting and one for welding. The machine is the first in its series to incorporate laser welding. The company says that this additional welding head provides flexibility for operators, who can now reflow a swaged tube end, or weld two pieces together and then machine them.
The laser-cutting and laser-welding heads can be mounted on either the X1 and Y1 axis or B axis, and customers can choose lasers ranging from 200 to 400 W. All laser operations are programmed and driven from the machine’s FANUC 31i-B5 control, and each laser’s frequency,Carbide Milling Inserts pulse width, focus and power are gravity turning inserts adjustable. Additionally, users can adjust the assist gas pressure from 5 to 350 psi, enabling the use of different pressures for piercing, cutting and welding.
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Laser Cutting System Cuts Thicker Material At High Speeds
Historically a maker of custom-engineered, special-purpose machine tools, the Ingersoll Milling Machine Company (Rockford, Illinois) is not a builder that would appear on most contract machine shops’ lists of potential suppliers. There is a gap between the price of one of this builder’s custom machines and the maximum price that even many large contract shops can afford to pay for capital equipment.
But that gap is getting smaller. In this age of greater emphasis on outsourcing to contractors, the kind of large and expensive workpieces that are well-suited to a custom machine tool are increasingly being assigned to independent shops. And at the same time, the success of many of these shops has left them with more money to spend on bigger and more versatile machines.
And then there is the other side of that gap. As a company, Ingersoll is seeing market changes of its own. The demand for specialty machine tools is narrowing because standard machines today can do so much more.
The result: This builder has decided to broaden its market by launching a line of machine tools that are custom-built only to a point. If the more successful job shops can be said to have partially closed the gap that separates them from custom machines, then Ingersoll now seeks to close that gap the rest of the way . . . by offering machines that use pre-engineered modules to permit more economical customization.
The company calls the line “MultiTec.” What makes this line more economical than its typical custom machines is that the available choices have been limited by design. With the MultiTec concept, “custom” machine building is no longer a matter of anything goes. Instead, ordering a machine from this line more resembles ordering a restaurant meal a la carte. Buyers create their own machines by selecting from a list of modular choices for machine platform, travels, spindle motor, spindle heads, tool storage, and other machine features.
The result is a machine tool that may come closer to being specifically tailored to a given shop’s high-end workload than any machine the shop would otherwise have thought to consider. In fact, the machines are at their most productive when applied to machining large, complex parts complete in one setup. Not only are the travels large, but each machine potentially comes with a range of changeable spindle heads for different applications.
Such a machine may change the way a shop thinks about processing large parts. In addition, representatives of the machine tool builder experience a change in thinking of their own. Burke Doar, the company’s manager of marketing and sales for heavy machinery, explains why. “The customer may want tool capacity of 150 tools exactly,” he says, “and we’re not used to saying no to requests like that. But on the MultiTec machine, tool storage capacity is only available in increments of 64—like 128, 192, and 256.” Insist on a number of tools that doesn’t fit this pattern, he says, and the company can only accommodate the request with a more expensive, truly custom machine.
For each machine specified, the most basic choice is the choice of platform and machine type. There are five options. They include vertical table and gantry-type milling machines, bar peeling inserts horizontal table and floor-type milling machines, and a vertical turning machine with milling capability. Travels in X and Y—as well as table diameter for the turning machine—generally begin at 49 inches and increase in modular increments up to at least twice that amount. (The gantry-type machine can be specified with X-axis travels up to 65 feet.) For a milling machine’s spindle, possible maximum speed and maximum horsepower combinations include 6,000/60, 3,000/60, 9,000/40, and 24,000/13. Also included among the options for this line are pallet changing systems that can link identical or dissimilar MultiTec machines into a common, centrally controlled cell.
All of these choices do come at a price, says Mr. Doar. When competitors’ standard machines are available that match some MultiTec Carbide Milling Inserts combination, the MultiTec machine may cost more. The company plans to address this difference by applying value-added resources unavailable to other builders. Chief among these, he says, is the staff of machine tool engineers that have traditionally been dedicated to the company’s specialty machine business. This staff will counsel MultiTec customers through time studies and other process engineering work. In addition, the machine tool builder has a sister company headquartered on the same campus—Ingersoll Cutting Tools—that will serve customers by outfitting the MultiTec machines with tooling packages tailored to the customer’s application. MMS
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Bio Based Machining Fluids Improve Efficiency and Tool Life
I have an application where I am milling a deep pocket in 6061 with a tight corner radius — 3/16 inch — into an angled surface. The maximum depth of the pocket is 1 inch deep (5× deep). The pocket is inside of another pocket, so toolholder clearance is also a problem. What’s more, the cut is very prone to chatter. How can I successfully mill this pocket?
Pockets like this are tricky because of so many competing factors, but identifying the overlying issues and constraints is a good first step to developing a solution. Ideally, you could use a larger tool, but you’re constrained by the pocket radius. Shortening the tool stick could help, but the primary pocket makes this impossible. The angled surface also leads to some interesting limitations as far as tool selection.
Even after you’ve selected the tool, the cut is prone to chatter, so you must determine the magnitude and direction of the cutting forces, as well as the system’s stiffness. Getting the cutting forces up into the spindle can be a huge benefit in this application, just like high feed milling in hard metals. Any cutting forces normal to the tool are the enemy. While you can’t eliminate all normal forces — given the pocket geometry, you must finish-mill the cut — you can reduce them. Anything you can do to add rigidity near the cut will also improve stiffness. Because this is a pocket within a pocket, you’ll also face significant clearance limitations.
With these difficulties in mind, it’s time to dive into the different components, and solve each as best as possible given the constraints.
The first thing you are up against is the tool diameter. Unfortunately, barring any design changes, the 3/16-inch tool at 5× deep is here to stay. Since you can’t change it, work with it. You want to reduce the amount of work you’re asking of this tool as much as possible.
One reduction strategy would be to use separate tools for finishing and roughing. A two-tool strategy will reduce the load on the tiny finisher and provide better tool life. It could even shorten the cycle time compared to a single-tool process — roughing’s increased productivity can counterbalance any time added for tool change and positioning.
Next, address the pocket. Since your challenging pocket is within another pocket, you can’t change much with the tool holder to increase stiffness. Yet you still need as much support as you can get, as close as possible to the cutting point. In this instance, a necked-down end mill (an end mill with a larger shank than cutting diameter) is wise. This will give you more stiffness where the tool holder can’t fit without rubbing against other critical features of the part.
The angled surface is the most unique aspect of this cutting problem. RCGT Insert Drilling out difficult pockets is typically a good solution. Drilling provides high removal rates, and the forces go where the machine and tool setup are strongest. In fact, it’s a common strategy in large titanium or hard metal parts. However, the angled surface changes that formula a bit. Fortunately, indexable drills or solid carbide flat-bottom drills are up to the task. These drills also have the benefit of being able to drill overlapping holes! Given how small this pocket is, perhaps a carbide flat-bottom drill is ideal here. It can fit tightly into that 3/16-inch radius and leave minimal material in the area at highest risk for chatter.
Bringing together these solutions, start by switching to a two-tool process. The first tool should be a 4- or 4.5-mm flat bottom drill (just smaller than the finish radius) for roughing the entire pocket, leaving only small scallops and a little floor material left for finishing. The CNC Carbide Inserts second, necked-down finishing tool will greatly improve the overall stiffness, and when combined with the minimal finishing stock, should enable a more productive finishing operation.
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Pinch Milling from Top to Bottom
It’s almost universally taken for granted that a multi-axis machine tool must be programmed with CAM software especially developed for this purpose. Now, that same kind of software can be used to program a six-axis robot arm. Programming the robot in CAM software makes it unnecessary Cemented Carbide Inserts to “teach” the robot by jogging it manually from point to point and recording these point-to-point moves as the robot’s motion commands. Teaching a robot this way can be cumbersome and time-consuming. During the process, the robot must be taken out of production.
Robotmaster is a software package, distributed by In-House Solutions Inc. (Richboro, Pennsylvania), that provides CAD/CAM-based, off-line programming for robots. Although off-line programming for robots is not new, this software is distinguished by its CAD/CAM integration. It runs fully integrated inside Mastercam CAM software for CNC machine tools. Mastercam, developed by CNC Software (Tolland, Connecticut), is a widely used CAM product that starts with a CAD geometry file and creates two- to five-axis tool paths for machining a corresponding Shoulder Milling Inserts workpiece. Essentially, programming the robot begins by using the functionality of Mastercam to manipulate the movement and orientation of a cutting tool as if creating a conventional tool path for CNC machining. Later, this machining tool path is converted into robot poses, which combine its position and orientation.
Once the cutter trajectory is created, a Robotmaster module lets the programmer draw from a library of pre-configured robots representing various makes and models of articulated robot arms. Normally, Mastercam uses the definitions in a “machine group” to determine the tool path output for the specific machine being programmed. In this case, however, the robot programming module enables the CAM software to treat the pre-configured robot as the definition of a specialized type of machine tool structure. This lets it take advantage of the robot’s unique architecture, which is unlike that of a typical CNC machine tool. The user must also define a few other items such as the robot’s end-of-arm tooling.
Next, a Robotmaster parameter screen working within the Mastercam framework enables the user to fine-tune parameters for robot motion. The system then automatically converts the CNC tool path into six-axis robotic trajectories, thus generating robot-specific motion for cutting trajectories as well as sweeping joint motion for “air” moves.
Other modules for robot programming provide the remaining steps that a programmer typically follows when programming a CNC machine tool. A simulator allows the user to validate and optimize the robotic program, check for collisions and so on. The simulator can display a model of the robot and workpiece or the entire work cell, including multiple machines and fixturing. Finally, a special postprocessor compiles the program file in the format required for the particular robot for which type of robot is employed. The software supports Motoman, Fanuc, ABB, Kuka and Staubli robots.
Applications for the robot programming include trimming, welding, spray-coating, painting, polishing, deburring/deflashing, dispensing, grinding and milling. Interestingly, milling with a robot is proving practical for producing molds, patterns and other workpieces as robots become more rigid and accurate. According to the software developers, milling programs can be generated automatically for a CAD model and subsequently modified to adjust for changing cutter shape, cutter diameter, depths of cut and number of cuts. The robot can perform roughing and finishing operations as well as the tool changes necessary to complete each program. It is appropriate, then, that robot programming should be based on CAM software as it is for CNC machining.
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5 CNC Apps Simplify Machine Shop Routines
Available from Yama Seiki, the AWEA BL-series horizontal boring mill is available with two different boring spindle models: the BL-S series and the BL-FM. Both models are equipped with a 40-tool automatic toolchanger located outside the working area to keep coolant and chips off the magazine and toolchange arm. X-axis travel ranges from 78.4" to 157.4", depending on the model; Y-axis travel measures 70.9" (94.5" optional); and W-axis travel measures 23.6". The table can accommodate a maximum load of 22,000 lbs.
The BL-S series machine features a 120-mm (4.7") diameter quill-type boring spindle with 600 mm of travel designed to increase rigidity and stability during heavy cuts. The machine’s spindle motor features continuous/30Carbide Milling inserts -min. ratings of 22/26 kW (30/35 hp). The stepless, variable-speed, gear-driven spindle has a two-step gearbox with speeds ranging to 2,400 rpm.
The BL-FM series features continuous/30-min. ratings of 22/25 kW (30/35 hp) and a stepless, variable-speed spindle with speeds ranging to 6,000 rpm in a 480 × 480 mm square SNMG Insert section. The spindle temperature is controlled by an oil spindle chiller.
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