Product category:
General Machining Subcontracting Services
News Release from: Impact Precision | Subject: Machined plastics parts
Edited by the Manufacturingtalk Editorial
Team on 28 December 2004
More are asking for machined plastics
parts
Within nine months of setting up its fast response, round-the-clock CNC machining service, Impact Precision has established a niche for machining plastics components to meet growing demand.
Within nine months of setting up its fast response, round-the-clock CNC machining service, Nottingham-based Impact Precision has established a niche for machining plastics components While business is growing in the production of aluminium, stainless steel and brass components, managing director Paul Cobb maintains the demand for mill/turning plastics parts on his two Citizen L20 CNC sliding head autos, as well as machining of plastics cubic parts such as housings and switch boxes on three Haas VF2 vertical machining centres, has dramatically increased
This article was originally published on Manufacturingtalk on 9 Jun 2004 at 8.00am (UK)
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Impact Precision's round-the-clock precision subcontract business has been expanded with new machine tools including a nine-axis Daewoo Puma MX 2500 ST mill/turn centre.
"We are now trying to recruit mill/turning machine setters to swell the existing workforce of five people," he says.
Impact Precision is currently buying some 5km of precision ground plastics bar a month to feed its Citizens, and the growing order book means the company has laid plans to double the sliding head capacity by purchasing two further Citizen L20s by the end of the year.
He says: "The feed mechanism arrangement of the machine and the LNS bar feed system are ideally suited to produce high tolerance, very complex mill/turned parts in addition to more simple plastics parts requiring good surface finish." Application engineering is proving to be the key factor to Impact Precision's success producing parts from PTFE, water approved acetal and a host of special plastics.
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The company has also developed, and is about to patent, its own automated deburring and deswarfing system that provides an unmanned solution to the very time consuming - but key-task of removing burrs and the stringy plastic swarf that tends to get caught up in the internal features of mill/turned components.
Customers already include domestic appliance, printer, electronics, autosport and pneumatics companies for which Impact Precision supplies parts such as complex housings, seals, shafts, valves, spools, fastenings, joints, bearings and spacers.
Most combine 'one-hit' cycle operations either by utilising the simultaneous front and backworking capability of the sliding head machines or in the case of the Haas machining centres, a special trunnion with multiple vices mounted on its four faces.
Impact Precision bases its sliding head production on the use of precision ground plastics bar and produces parts in batches that vary between 500 and 10,000.
On the Haas VF2 machines, batch quantities tend to vary between 300 and 1,000, and as Paul Cobb has found, customers are opting for machined parts rather than mouldings.
This enables design changes to be easily accommodated, batch quantities can be smaller, high tooling changes are eliminated and closer tolerances can be specified.
Most important, he has found that customers also have the benefit of quicker delivery because of the shorter production lead time.
Also installed at the Impact Precision plant is non-contact inspection equipment.
This technology eliminates any problems such as distorting the soft surface of the part when measuring high tolerances of say 0.02mm, which are sometimes specified, and to prevent damage or marking of the surface of the component.
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