Product category:
Machining centres - all types
News Release from: C Dugard | Subject: Olympic Seiki M-C, mill and tap centre and VTL
Edited by the Manufacturingtalk Editorial
Team on 14 May 2002
Double-acting ballscrew cuts machine
downtime
Very fast-moving mill-tap centres, zippy machining centres and a very nippy pick-up spindle vertical turning lathe are the results of applying a double-acting ballscrew axis drive.
Double-acting ballscrew cuts downtime Olympic Seiki is building very fast-moving mill-tap centres, machining centres and a very nippy pick-up spindle vertical turning lathe (VTL) following the development of a patented double-acting ballscrew, which can match the axis acceleration rates and top speeds of linear motor systems Offering precise, fast-moving CNC machine tools at well under the price of linear motor powered axis equivalents; the company is projecting rapid expansion and has already established agencies throughout Western Europe
This article was originally published on Manufacturingtalk on 26 Jan 2006 at 8.00am (UK)
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Talking to Manufacturingtalk on the C Dugard at the recent MACH 2002 exhibition in Birmingham, UK, chairman of Olympic Seiki, Hsi-Kuan Chen said: "Why have linear motors when a double-acting ballscrew will do it?" A privately owned corporation, based in Taichung, Taiwan, Olympic Seiki began building machines in early 2000.
Established by Hsi-Kuan in 1995, the company builds automatic tool changer magazines, machine parts, table indexers, table rotation mechanisms and a hybrid design (ceramic ball bearings) spindle which runs at up to 200,000 rev/min.
The company also builds its own integral drive spindle rated up to 18kW and 4000 rev/min.
Further reading
Low-cost turning and MCs cost under GBP 50,000
High-speed vertical turning and machining centres offering production times that are significantly faster than current machines can achieve - with up to 96m/min rapids - cost under GBP 50,000.
Super-fast machines do not use linear motors
An "amazing response" was given at MACH 2002 to the UK launch of CNC machines offering production times that are significantly faster than current machines, but costing less than GBP 50,000!
Hard materials ground and sliced accurately
Ceramic? Silicon? Quartz? Glass? Tungsten? - whatever the hard or brittle material, slicing and surface grinding and vertical profile grinding machines perform consistently and accurately.
Hsi-Kuan developed the idea of a double-acting ballscrew - that is, one ballscrew with a right-handed and left-handed thread - and patented it in 2000.
By using the relative movement concept, the non-cutting time is greatly reduced.
You get a very good dynamic balancing effect with the double-acting ballscrew, such that there is no over-run, as with conventional ballscrews and linear motors.
Normally, the highest acceleration and traverse rates achieved with single-acting ballscrew is around 0.5G and 60m/min and above.
The double-acting ballscrew achieves 1 - 1.2G and 96m/min on the Olympic Seiki S-650 VMC.
The S-650 VMC, equipped with Olympic Fanuc Oi-MA CNC, has a drilling capacity of 25mm in steel, taps to M20 and has a milling metal removal rate of up to 100cm3/min.
Axis travels are 650mm (X), 350mm (Y) and 400mm (Z).
Rapid feedrates are 96m/min in X and Z and 60m/min in Y.
Acceleration rates are, respectively, 1.2G in X and Z and 1G in Y.
The VMC is equipped with a twin-pallet changer with 650 X 250mm pallets and 2.5 sec pallet change time.
Positioning accuracy and repeatability is quoted at 0.01mm/300mm and +/-0.005mm.
The machine has an automatic tool change time of 3 sec, chip-to-chip and storage for 24 tools.
The main spindle, with HSK-63A taper nose is rated at 5.5/7.5kW for 10,000 rev/min, or optionally, 12,000 rev/min.
Machine cost is under GBP 50,000.
There is a fast CNC mill/tap centre, the S-500.
The machine has axis travels of 480mm by 250mm by 250mm for X, Y and Z, with rapid feedrates up to 96m/min (X), 60m/min (Y) and 96m/min (Z).
Accelerations are 1.4G (X) 1G (Y) and 1.4G (Z).
Spindle power is 1.5kW/2kW, and speeds are 12,000 rev/min or optionally, 15,000 rev/min.
The spindle has an HSK-40A taper nose and is served by a toolchanger and 24-tool magazine.
Tool change time, chip-to-chip, is 2 sec.
A twin-pallet changer is also supplied, with pallets of 500mm by 290mm and pallet change time of 1.5sec.
There was also shown at MACH 2002 a pick-up spindle VTL, the VL-8: "The existing ones on offer in the market are far too slow.
They traverse the heavy weight of the spindle head, with the component to and from a conveyor," said Hsi-Kuan.
"With our VL-8, we use a toolchanger concept to bring the parts to the spindle - it is very fast." The VL-8 uses a horizontal disc-type billet magazine, which traverses across very quickly (1.2G acceleration) to the vertical spindle, which then perfumes the drop and pick-up.
A neat idea.
The machine price is also under GBP 50,000.
The VL-8 has a maximum swing of 350mm, a standard 8in (250mm) chuck, maximum cutting length of 150mm and maximum cutting diameter of 250mm.
Tool turret indexing time is 0.15 sec and has capacity for eight 25mm tools.
Rapid traverse rates are 36m/min (X) and 72m/min (Y) with accelerations of 1G and 1.2G respectively.
Spindle power is 11/8.5kW.
Next development is to fit the VL series with driven tooling.
Olympic Seiki currently employs 100 and turns over T$ 1bn (about GBP 21m) each year.
Hsi-Kuan confidently predicts that the company will grow to 200 people and turn over T$ 13bn (say GBP 280m) by the end of 2003.
Since first showing the machining centre at last year's EMO in Hannover Germany, Olympic Seiki has teamed up with the Okuma dealers in Europe using agents in Italy (Cellmacch), Switzerland (Suvema), France (Celada), Germany (Okuma Europe), UK (C Dugard), Belgium and the Netherlands (Gibas) and India (Cosmos).
No agency has yet been established in the US. Request a free brochure from C Dugard ...
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