HMC reduces lathe spindle machining time

A 500mm twin-pallet Mitsui Seiki HU50A horizontal machining centre has been installed at Colchester Lathe for producing a series of axial and radial holes in CNC lathe spindles.

A 500mm twin-pallet Mitsui Seiki HU50A horizontal machining centre has been installed at the Heckmondwike machine tool build plant of Colchester Lathe for producing a series of axial and radial holes in the spindles of the highly successful Tornado and Combi range of CNC lathes.

The machine forms part of an initial GBP 400,000 spindle line investment programme and following commissioning trials has already demonstrated a reduction in cycles times from typically 100 minutes to just 25 minutes.

Quality and consistency of spindle machining has been improved and tool life through the Seco Tooling supplied package is described by Colchester production engineers as being significantly better.

The HU50 which has a 30kW spindle and working envelope of 720mm by 700mm by 650mm is performing critical drilling, tapping and reaming operations as well as keyway milling of the hollow spindle EN8 shafts.

Altogether six equi-spaced flat-bottom holes up to 36mm diameter are being produced with intersecting compound angle holes.

As part of the low inventory production scheduling introduced by Colchester, batch sizes are between three and five components.

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