Archive for the ‘Abrasive Machining’ Category

CNC cylindrical grinder for aerospace, automotive, bearing and optics manufacturing

Sunday, May 24th, 2009

Accura Technics announces advancements in precision grinding applicable to aerospace, automotive, bearing and optics manufacturing.

CNC cylindrical grinder for aerospace, automotive, bearing and optics manufacturing has produced roundness of 0.25 micron in ball bearing outer races and 0.15 micron in inner races.

In capability tests, Accura’s Model 1210G CNC grinder produced 0.000010in (0.25 micron) roundness in ball bearing outer races and 0.000006in (0.15 micron) roundness in inner races.

This multi-surface grinder was delivered to the USA’s Adcole Corporation (Marlborough, Massachusetts; Pompano Beach, Florida) for grinding spindle components for camshaft and crankshaft measuring machines.

Roundness of these components directly impacts axial and radial run-out of the assembled spindle.

Excellent run-out is crucial to the measuring machines’ performance.

and it will only get better from here.” The 1210G is equipped with a hydrostatic bearing workhead, and five wheelheads: an air bearing ID/OD spindle, and a ball bearing rotary surface spindle.

on inspection of the first spindle processed on the 1210G, Adcole’s general manager, Patrick Cole, said, “Needless to say, they are impressed.

These axes are driven by ball screws and servomotors while the X-axis is driven by a linear motor.

The five wheelheads are mounted on independent CNC axes.

“Customers turn to us for creative solutions to their precision grinding needs,” said Patrick Hurst, president of Accura Technics.

The one slides are mounted on a thermally stable, natural granite base.

“We work with our customers to create robust processes that deliver higher precision at a competitive cost which saves them time and funds.” The 1210G has a 12in (300mm) swing and 10in (250mm) workpiece height capacity.

Standard X-axis travel is 14in (350mm).

Standard Z-axis travel is 12in (300mm).

The machine can be fully automated with robot loader, conveyors and gauging.

Optional features include C-axis for non-round grinding and acoustic emission monitoring method.

Accura Technics other products include the MicroTol – a machine instrument platform suitable for optics machining, hard turning, shoe centerless ID grinding, and miniature bore grinding.

* About Accura Technics – Accura Technics plans and builds super-precision machine tools at their factory in Keene, New Hampshire, USA.

Accura is also developing a larger vertical grinder with 30in (750mm) diameter capacity for applications in the aerospace, bearing and heavy equipment industries.

Co-founders, Don Brehm and Patrick Hurst are engineers with extensive backgrounds in high-performance CNC machine tools.

Accura Technics’ staff has expertise in grinding, parts handling, optics, hydrostatic bearings, CNC and motion control.

CNC cylindrical grinding machine

Sunday, May 24th, 2009

Jones & Shipman (JandS) has launched the next-generation Ultragrind CNC cylindrical grinding machine that is designed to offer more power & accuracy, plus increased component weight handling.

The Ultragrind CNC is designed for the precision production environment such as aerospace & higher volume manufacture including automotive, as well as high-precision sub-contract machining for biomedical, high-end method tool/die sets, F1 & motor sport engineering.

‘We will be demonstrating a working prototype at the CIMT event, so visitors to the show will be able to see all the machine’s advantages,’ said Mike Duignan, sales & marketing director of Jones & Shipman.

Built on a one-piece bed design, the machine combines rigidity, stability & stock removal rates while maintaining precision.

A modular wheelhead design ensures customers have a wide choice of external & internal grinding spindle combinations, effectively allowing the customer to specify a custom machine, but without the cost & build time associated with it.

The modular wheelhead design gives wheel sizes up to 500 x 100mm (diameter) & wheel spindle power up to 15kW, with ultra rigid spindles providing substantially increased metal removal rates & increased productivity.

Angular wheelhead positional accuracy & repeatability are assured by a high-precision 1deg Hirth coupling.

An optional true B-axis programmable to 0.001deg utilising feedback from a high-accuracy encoder mounted directly to the rotational spindle axis means infinitely variable positional resolution can be achieved.

The machine currently offers 650mm or 1000mm between centres (with larger machine length capacities planned) & centre heights of 180mm, 200mm & 250mm.

The increased diameter capacity (of up to 500mm) means there are options to cater for larger mass components up to 450kg, & odd-shaped components, which can result in high rotational inertia.

The program is built around a Fanuc 320i with touch-screen control technique.

The Ultragrind machine uses Jones & Shipman’s Windows-based graphical programming program suite, which further builds on the Easy program that removes the requirement for operators to input code, although ISO programming is fully supported & codes can be viewed & used if required.

A full suite of dressing & grinding programs are available for the operator.

This reduces the time needed for operator training, machining setup & changeover times.

A wide range of additional options including gauging & auto loading are also obtainable.

Jones & Shipman setup pages permit the operator to digitise diamond & wheel positions by means of a simple touch-screen interface.