Product category:
Machine spindles and spindle attachments
News Release from: CTL Centreline | Subject: Centreline fixed angle drilling heads
Edited by the Manufacturingtalk Editorial
Team on 09 October 2001
Fixed angle drilling heads accept tools
from ATC
At Trelleborg Automotive, UK, two Centreline fixed angle drilling heads are helping to ensure a production rate of 40 spacer blocks per hour from a vertical machining centre.
At the Coventry factory of Trelleborg Automotive, two Centreline fixed angle drilling heads are helping to ensure a production rate of 40 spacer blocks per hour from a vertical machining centre, in this case supplied by Haas Supplied to Ford for the Transit vehicle, the spacer blocks are machined from aluminium castings
This article was originally published on Manufacturingtalk on 27 Jun 2005 at 8.00am (UK)
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Right-angle machining heads stored in ATC magazine
Two right-angle heads - one for milling-intensive work and the other for drilling and tapping - can be exchanged automatically from a machining centre's tool magazine.
After face milling, one hole is drilled at 90 degrees followed by two holes angled at 8 degrees, one either side of the perpendicular.
Said production engineer, Adam Lindsay: "We fixture three parts at a time and use a manual pallet change system to allow us to load and unload during the machining cycle, which is uninterrupted as the Centreline 8 degree heads are designed for automatic tool change (ATC) from the 20 station magazine." Cycle time for machining three parts is three minutes, a production level which could not be matched using indexing heads on the pallets to achieve the angled holes, as only one component could be fixtured at a time.
Three dedicated fixtures, two at opposing 8 degree angles, was not the answer either as only one spacer block would be produced per cycle and in addition, progressive manual handling of the component along the pallet would significantly increase the labour cost.
The ATC angle heads with 1:1 speed ratio and ER25 collets to clamp the 16mm diameter drills were the ideal solution.
Both heads are made to orientate precisely in the BT40 taper spindle along the X axis of the Haas machine such that one drill points to the left and the other to the right.
Each drill is advanced through the material by interpolating the spindle downwards with the table (X) in the appropriate direction.
Two holes are thus drilled at 16 degrees to each other, which together with the 90 degree hole provides rigid fixing of the spacer block to the Transit axle.
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