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Having spent 3 decades in the machine tool industry and being a person by nature that is not easily impressed, you can bet your last coffee coupon that if I am in fact excited about something, it is worth taking note of.
My story starts over 5 years ago now, I had been asked by one of my suppliers to make the 8 hour pilgrimage from my Southern Ontario home in Canada to the Mecca of machine tools, the International Machine Tool Show (IMTS) in Chicago Illinois. Partnering with another local machine tool dealer to share expenses, we headed by car along I96 to do some business, seek out supply opportunities and generally network amongst the international gathering of our peers. I was concentrating on my main order of business in Flexible Manufacturing Systems while my partner was there to work a booth for a company that he was representing. It is my partner's line of machines that I am speaking about today, I don't sell them, I only wish I did.
Prior to our trek down the highway to Chicago, a new patented engineering principle called "relative movement" had been explained to us. When they say that some of the most innovative advancements in engineering are incredibly simple, I can say with confidence that at least one major advancement is. "Relative movement" is a term that describes the premise upon which the world's fastest CNC production machine is built. In layman's terms; the X and Z axis of a 3 axis machining center utilizes ballscrews that are threaded left hand for half of their length and threaded right hand for the remaining portion. You're still probably not seeing it yet. What this means is that all non workload travels and rapid travels are doubled on these 2 axis. In even simpler terms; with the workpiece and the spindle traveling towards each other along the same ball screw, one turn of the ball screw produces twice the acceleration in bringing these elements towards or away from each other.
There's more. Another engineering principle is at work here as well. Vibration, which is the failing point of all rapid machine movements and metalworking applications in general, is addressed by balanced frequency harmonics. In other words, the vibration created by the movement in one direction is canceled or "balanced" by the movement in the other direction. Are you as impressed as I was yet? Visitors to the 2002 Chicago Machine Tool show sure were, so much so that it was not unusual for persons witnessing a machine demonstration to jump back from the machine thinking that something was amiss. When it is considered that up until that period of time, advances in CNC machine tool were loping along in very small percentage gain increments, how can you blame an experienced machinist from thinking they were about to witness a dreaded machine crash when they were presented with a 25% percentage gain?
This number is admittedly on paper and make no mistake, there were some bugs to be worked out as the first prototypical units hit production floors around the world during that time period. The first 200 machines put into service experienced much the same failures. Liquid tight wiring for eample that was fine at normal machining speeds tended to fatigue and fail in a few short weeks of service at these new high speeds. Some of the initial machine parts were not up to the task either but as the number of units in service began to climb to several hundred, most of these issues were addressed. Then the real client feedback began reaching the manufacturer of these machines. The initial claims of 25-30% increased production ran headlong into a pleasant reality. Even when considering downtime for those little annoying breakdowns that seemed to occur far too frequently during those early years, users of these machines were consistently reporting increased productivity of over 20%. Now that is something to be impressed about.
There are other realities. Once the loads or weights of both workpiece and machine component are increased by virtue of mass, the returns in increased speed and subsequent productivity are diminished. This is the main reason why the machine manufacturer has focused on building smaller machines. In the realm of small CNC machined workpiece production, the relative movement principle is unequaled, once the workpieces become larger however, it doesn't work quite as well. There was also the practical consideration of maintaining focus, there were issues to be sorted out on the first few hundred machines. It simply made sense to focus on getting a 3 or 4 machine product line right. After 5 years of tweaking, I feel they have.
I don't have any association with this machine, as I mentioned, I do not sell them but the gentleman I split expenses with on my trip to Chicago 5 years ago has had a great deal of luck selling them.
You can learn more at his website: HERE |
