Product category:
Vertical machining centres (VMC)
News Release from: Whitehouse Machine Tools | Subject: TC-S2A CNC drill-tap centre
Edited by the Manufacturingtalk Editorial
Team on 16 July 2007
High quality from low cost drill-tap
centre
Oberon Performance breathes new life into old mills with CNC drill-tap centre
The Japanese machine tool manufacturer, Brother, has reduced the UK price of its entry-level TC-S2A CNC drill-tap centre to under GBP30,000 including installation, training and 12-month parts and labour warranty One of the first to benefit is Oberon Performance, Havant, which in April 2007 replaced a 5-axis vertical machining centre (VMC) from another supplier with a 3-axis TC-S2A for the manufacture of high-quality, aluminium parts for the motorcycle aftermarket
This article was originally published on Manufacturingtalk on 28 Jun 2002 at 8.00am (UK)
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The machine was supplied through sole UK agent, Whitehouse Machine Tools.
Despite the drill-tap centre being one-third the price of the previous VMC, it produces "astronomically better surface finish", according to Steve Evans and his co-director, Steve Street.
They are joint owners of Oberon and both are confirmed motorcycle enthusiasts.
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Phased out in 2004, the TC-S2A was superseded first by the -S2B and then the -S2C model.
However, the original, lower specification machine with fewer options has been relaunched, thanks to a voracious appetite in China for budget machine tools.
The economies of scale in production have brought down the price in all world markets.
Oberon specialises in machining items for performance motorcycles that are better than the original parts, such as waterproof tax disc holders, mirror sets, fuel and reservoir caps, handlebar top clamps, footpegs, chain adjuster blocks, engine cover and clutch plates, preload adjusters and headlamp sets.
Logo engraving for some popular motorcycle makes is carried out on request, as is bespoke product design on Oberon's SolidWorks CAD/CAM system.
This is also used for producing most of the programs for the Brother machine and three bar-fed, twin-spindle, Y-axis mill-turn centres, used for round-the-clock, large batch machining of products like tax disc holders.
The accessories are sold at specialist exhibitions and via the internet, rather than through retail outlets.
Tolerances are fairly open on such machined parts, although they have to fit precisely.
More important is the cosmetic appearance, especially on the surfaces of cover plates and caps that are colour-anodised afterwards, as larger areas tend to show up any imperfections in machining.
The company's venture into 5-axis machining was logical enough, as components are becoming ever more complex and Oberon wanted to produce them in one hit by interpolating three axes and using the other two for positioning the part.
It proved impossible to achieve a good surface finish, however, and cycle times were more than double those on the TC-S2A.
This is a classic problem with 5-axis machines, which are only as fast as their slowest rotary axis.
Oberon could not achieve sufficiently high productivity for economical series production of typically 30-off.
Steve Evans researched the market for a replacement, temporarily installing another 3-axis VMC to give them time to find the right machine.
He was looking for a compact, simply constructed, totally reliable machine with high speeds and feeds for cutting aluminium billet productively.
At the outset, he thought that 30-taper drill-tap centres, such as those offered by Brother, were not robust enough for continuous milling, albeit of aluminium.
However, he liked the look of the TC-S2B, in particular the well-designed coolant filtration system and the accessible swarf bin at the rear, from which it is easy to empty the copious aluminium chips.
He was also very much in favour of three-monthly grease lubrication of the slideways, avoiding the environmental problems associated with oil and the foul smell of contaminated coolant if the oil is not skimmed off regularly.
He also trusted Whitehouse when its applications engineer said that the machine would be more than capable of doing the job, as a few years ago the same supplier had sold to Oberon a 7-axis Takahashi mill-turn centre that has proved reliable and fit for purpose.
Steve Evans concluded, "The Brother machine was commissioned in one hour and we were straight into production, transferring programs from the temporary VMC with just a few M-code changes.
The improvement in quality was immediately obvious.
In the first couple of months we put on around 30 different jobs.
"The machine has very fast cutting feeds and rapid traverse rates up to 50 m/min.
We mill and drill with the spindle flat out at 16,000 rpm and we tap at 6,000 rpm, so we can easily afford the time to put in an extra operation and still meet our production targets".
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