Product category:
Abrasive machining - manual and CNC machines
News Release from: 600 Centre | Subject: Okamoto surface grinders
Edited by the Manufacturingtalk Editorial
Team on 20 December 2002
Machine tool package satisfied need for
precision
It was the need to maintain high levels of flatness and parallelism within a few microns for its in-house press tooling that led Datum to buy a machine tool package including precision grinders.
It was the need to maintain high levels of flatness and parallelism within a few microns for its in-house developed UniCut press tooling that led Hampshire based Datum Precision Tooling to the purchase of a machine package including two Okamoto surface grinders, a Bridgeport Series 1 turret mill and a Harrison Model 390 centre lathe from 600 Centre of Shepshed near Loughborough Since the installation of the two grinding machines, which also coincided with the purchase of a wire EDM and five-axis vertical machining centre, the company has been able to diversify from being a very successful printed circuit board tooling and press tool manufacturer into the automotive, medical, telecoms and plastic injection mould tooling business
This article was originally published on Manufacturingtalk on 22 May 2001 at 8.00am (UK)
Related stories
Robodrill produces savings within three months
Within three months of installation a Fanuc Robodrill, Raytheon Marine Company based in Portsmouth calculated savings of GBP6,000 on components it produced due to faster set ups.
Wire EDM machine uprated to cut quicker
Fanuc has extended the capacity, specification and performance of its Robocut Alpha-1iA wire cut electro discharge machine (EDM) to provide high accuracy performance cutting at up to 300mm2/min.
And, due to the capacity of the larger Okamoto 105 DX-V is now able to provide a sub contract grinding service to local industry.
Datum Precision was set up in 1990 and now employs 24 people in two 7,000 (square feet) factory units in Finchdean just outside Waterlooville, with sales of over GBP 850,000.
With an own product in UniCut, which is a new concept for producing highly accurate shaped holes and profiles in acetates, polyester, polycarbonate, plastics, paper and flexible circuit board materials, the business is building.
Further reading
VMC has high positioning accuracy
Weighing in at over four tonnes and fitted with generous hardened and ground slideways, the Bridgeport VMC 1000 vertical machining centre has a high positioning accuracy of five microns.
Well-priced hydraulic table surface grinder
A new competitively priced hydraulically operated table surface grinding machine developed by Okamoto, the world's largest grinding machine manufacturer, incorporates AC servo control
Productivity Partnerships Exhibition announced
The seventh Productivity Partnerships Exhibition brings together an unrivalled display of the advantages and application of the latest manufacturing technologies between 10-12 October
It is now supplying tooling for producing the likes of mobile phone lenses, automotive dashboard instruments, panels and fascias, labels, gaskets and applications where overlays are required.
In order that the shaped parts can be punched using the UniCut press tool design, the relevant materials are fed in strip format which is mounted on a backing strip which allows the components to be simply peeled off at the point of assembly.
However, the critical nature of maintaining the depth of cut of the tool so the resulting edge is clean, the razor sharp tool is not blunted and the backing material is not pierced, is where the investment in new production machining was key to Datum.
Says Sales and Marketing Manager Gary Gibbs: "We are now supplying most UK and a growing export market with UniCut tooling for producing products such as telephone lenses, labels and fascias and have recently broken into the Far East with a major producer which means the tooling concept is proving to be a real winner." The UniCut punch tool concept can produce up to nine components at a time.
It can be supplied as a bolster with a tool cassette which enables different profile shapes to be quickly and easily changed over or as a compound pierce and blank tool in order to combination punch holes and the profile of the part in the same pressing cycle.
When the tool is produced from design to final pass-off it is championed by one of Datum's six highly skilled toolmakers.
Each toolmaker will operate any of the company's machines, to produce the relevant parts, then assemble the finished tool, perform the try-out and finally sign-off the project.
Because of the accuracy required from the press tool, the machining datums initiated by grinding the plates flat and parallel is critical to all the following operations and the ultimate tool performance.
The larger of the two Okamotos, the ACC 105 DX profile and surface grinder has a table size of 1050mm by 500mm and a load capacity of 700kg, while the smaller ACC 450 DXA profile grinding machine has a 410mm by 150mm table.
Each machine was chosen due to simplicity of setting and the capability to be set up on a task in automatic cycle and left to run unattended allowing the tool maker to get on with something else.
Maintains Technical Director, Robin Lovett: "This made the machine purchases excellent value for money and gave us a capability we never had before.
Also, because of the accuracy we can obtain, this ensures that when following milling operations are performed the tool blade can be maintained to a consistent sharp edge around the profile and we can therefore precisely control the quality of cut the tool makes and ensure a long service life.".
• 600 Centre: contact details and other news
• Email this article to a colleague
• Register for the free Manufacturingtalk email newsletter
• Manufacturingtalk Home Page
Search the Pro-Talk network of sites
