Product category:
EDM wire cutting
News Release from: 600 Centre | Subject: Fanuc Alpha OiA wire EDM
Edited by the Manufacturingtalk Editorial
Team on 19 November 2003
Six-axis wire EDM expected to up
business by 50%
One six-axis wire EDM installation should help generate up to a 50 per cent increase in business over the next 12 months for specialist toolmaker.
"This one machine installation should help generate up to a 50 per cent increase in our business over the next 12 months." That's how Richard Gibson, the owner of specialist toolmaker Micron Precision, summed up the impact of the recently installed Fanuc Alpha OiA wire-cut electro-discharge machine (EDM) Supplied by the 600 Centre of Shepshed near Loughborough, the six-axis machine has a high specification with rotary indexer and an in-cycle probing system
This article was originally published on Manufacturingtalk on 28 Mar 2002 at 8.00am (UK)
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Already, the machine has enabled the company to capitalise on the growth in polycrystalline diamond (PCD) tooling by producing highly complex special combination rotating tools which are mostly specified for machining centres working on higher volume applications in the automotive and aerospace sectors.
Set-up in 1991 primarily to specialise in repair of single blade reamers and more complex fine boring tools, Micron Precision now also designs and manufactures a variety of special, rotating-type cutting tools between 3 mm and 400 mm diameter.
Cutting materials include: solid, brazed and indexable carbide inserts and more recently, the higher performance PCD.
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Because these tools are multi-diameter they are used to combine the functions of several standard tools into one, single, higher-value combination unit giving higher productivity and so tend to be expensive.
Here, the Hinckley-based company has created a niche business because of its tooling knowledge and capability to design and manufacture everything in-house using the latest CAD/CAM and CNC technology.
The real business breakthrough for Micron Precision came late in 2002 when it finally decided to take the plunge and invest in a wire erosion machine.
Says Richard Gibson: "We needed to go to the next level on special tooling and be able to produce PCD units which were growing in demand from a number of key industry sectors.
So, to machine this raw ultra-hard material and then finish the PCD inserts there was really no choice but to invest in wire EDM technology." After carefully studying the machines available, the company finally settled on the Fanuc Alpha OiA wire EDM unit as best meeting its requirements in terms of price and performance.
The close proximity of the 600 Centre was an added bonus as Micron Precision had no experience of wire-erosion and would initially need quite a high level of back-up and technical support.
Richard Gibson describes the effects of having to work to tolerances of five micron or less on finished cutters.
"We had to have a very precise method of rotating tool bodies in the horizontal axis in order to gain access to all the cutting edges on the tool and, establish an accurate means of checking the relative positions of the various insert locations," he says.
To meet these requirements, the 600 Centre specified the Fanuc machine with a high precision Jauch and Schmider rotary axis unit and a Renishaw TS27R touch trigger probe along with associated software to automatically feed positional data back to the machine's control system.
This enables the six-axis Alpha OiA to be used to rough out the basic blade shape profiled from a 74mm diameter by 1.6mm to 3.1mm thick disc of raw PCD, and then accurately finish machine the blades once they have been assembled and brazed into the tool body.
Although it has taken the company a good few months to fully get to grips with the intricacies of wire erosion along with programming, workholding and probing, the Fanuc machine is now really starting to pay dividends.
He says: "While EDM represented a major investment for our company, the Alpha machine gave us the opportunity to get into the rapidly expanding PCD tooling market.
Our new found ability to wire cut this ultra-hard material has already achieved wonders for the business and PCD tooling has grown to account for around 45 per cent of our current sales." Current production rates are running at between 20 and 30 special tools each month and batch sizes are usually between one and three.
He says: "As I look forward, the future looks even brighter, as more companies are now looking to the speed, accuracy and long life capability of PCD tooling, particularly on specials, to boost productivity, cut costs and improve tooling inventory." With its automatic wire re-feed and intelligent software, the Alpha OiA allows Micron Precision to run the machining process around the clock.
Longer finishing jobs, say typically between two and eight hours, are run unmanned at night which further increases productivity.
Moreover, the use of de-ionised water as the dielectric on the Fanuc Alpha helped ease the move into unmanned machining as it kept insurance premiums low for 'lights-out' working as the fluid will not catch fire.
A prime example of Micron's capability is a multi-insert PCD tool for the automotive sector.
Used on a vertical machining centre running at 10,000 revs/min, the four-insert tool produces two forms on an aluminium water inlet in a 'one-hit' cycle time of just six seconds.
Operations involved to make the tool include milling the outer diameter of the 25mm central spigot to accommodate two PCD inserts and the machining of a radius form on the top end for a further two PCD inserts.
To produce the tool, a green stock blank was modified to take the four inserts and the Fanuc wire machine was used both to rough out the PCD blanks and then finish the inserts once they had been located and brazed in their relative location pockets.
A further example is a special two-piece combination coring tool developed for machining forged aluminium gas cylinder parts on a horizontal machining centre.
The first part of the tool measures around 15mm diameter by 80mm long and contains five indexable carbide inserts which are used for cleaning up the central hole and producing a 3 (degrees) taper.
This portion of the tool then locates into the main body of a larger, 53mm diameter, facing tool which has two brazed PCD inserts which combination face and externally chamfer the part.
As well as producing the PCD inserts for this tool, wire erosion was also used to machine a central slot in the main body of the tool holder.
This particular tooling project is subject to on-going development and at present, the PCD insert used for the chamfering operation is mounted on a slide which enables various diameters to be accommodated by manual adjustment of the tool.
However, as part of on-going development by Micron Precision, it plans to produce a series of different diameter central tools which will be easily interchangeable with the main body in order that families of parts can be processed in a 'one-hit' machining cycle simply by changing the front end of the tool.
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