VISI ‘connects’ Alpha’s mouldmaking team

An injection mould manufacturer has seen a recent resurgence of tool making in its native Irish Republic, and says CAM software helped it through the recession by giving the company a competitive edge to work in high-end markets.

Alpha Precision, based in Tubbercurry, County Sligo, operates an almost full suite of VISI modules, which director Brendan Feely describes as a seamless communication tool.
“Several years ago Ireland experienced an exodus of tool-making contracts as work went overseas, particularly to China. At the same time, VISI CADCAM software for the mould and die industry was rapidly developing and adding new features. Even companies which weren’t computer literate were investing in the technology to survive. The software had a huge effect on the tool-making industry, giving us a competitive advantage to weather the storm.”
He says it’s now “high end all the way” for Alpha Precision – high-end staff building high-end mould tools with high-end software. “The technology promotes a more automated process, and means our staff need a different skillset nowadays, to use VISI to its full potential.”
To explain fully how he feels VISI is the seamless communication tool that acts as the glue in the complete tool-making environment, he likens his tool room to a football team. “We need our goalkeeper, defenders, midfielders and strikers. We have a variety of different machines doing different jobs, so our operators have different skills. The software is applied on the back of the machining, and because there are several disciplines, such as design, milling, wire and spark eroding, the software fits naturally into its given area. The operator in that area is just trained on the one particular VISI module.”
Continuing the “team” analogy, Feely says the tool room is like a group of people from different countries with none of them speaking a language other than their own. “One language is design, with others including flow analysis, milling, wire EDM and spark erosion. VISI is the common language that unites all processes, ensuring everything moves fluently through the tool room from one discipline to another.”

Operating with 12 employees, the company produces an average of around 40 tools a year, ranging in size from 100 x 100 mm, up to 600 x 1000 mm, mainly for the automotive, medical, packaging and electronics sectors.
Two of the company’s current projects are: producing a number of high cavitation tools for one of its many medical customers; and a contract for two-shot plastic injection tools, which involves an over mould. “Although two-shot production adds another element by involving a second material and process, VISI keeps it simple and efficient.”
With VISI programs running the company’s high-speed milling on Röder and Makino machining centres, the challenges posed by the medical industry’s requirement for very fine micro levels, are readily overcome. “We use a 42,000 rpm spindle speed for very small detail finishing, and cut our electrodes on a Makino F3, with high definition being done on an F5. And we can also machine a cavity in just one night, which would otherwise take a week. Using VISI Machining we can quickly produce a highly polished medical part with fine detail, a milled finish and a split line, within micron accuracy.”
VISI also powers Alpha Precision’s Charmilles EDM machines for spark eroding and Mitsubishi wire eroders. He says parts of the tool will have been cut on each of the machines, and when it’s ready for shipping it is a very fine micron, accurately finished tool for, typically, the medical or automotive industry.
Having invested in many VISI modules including Modelling, Analysis, Flow, Mould and Progress, wire cutting and electrode systems, along with 2D Milling, 3D Milling and High Speed Milling, the software is used at every stage of the company’s process, beginning with providing an accurate quotation for the customer. “We use VISI’s analytical tools to check the drafts and all the different features we’ll need to build into the mould, such as the core and side pieces.
“When the order’s been placed, we work closely with our customers’ moulders on the design concept, including flow analysis and tool layout. Once the 2D design is broken down and we have the tooling in full 3D, we really begin to see the huge power of VISI, which controls everything from design, through milling to wiring in one environment. As we’re not going across translators there’s a perfect understanding within the technology, taking it right through every stage.”

Combining VISI’s Compass technology with its 2D and 3D milling capability, all milling for hard prepping and high-speed finishing is handled quickly and accurately, which Feely says is vital to the company’s operation. “We make a lot of one-off components for each mould, meaning we only run a program once. As pattern cutters we need to be very good at generating CNC code time after time, and VISI is exceptional at doing that job for us.”
Although injection mould tools form Alpha Precision’s core business, the company also provides a blow-moulding and forming-tool service, and has experience in specialised press tooling. However, Feely concludes by saying that the business is currently embarking on an exciting new journey, working closely with a major customer on injection rubber.
For further information www.visicadcam.com

Aerospace gear specialist brings EDM in-house

Aldershot-based FT Gearing supplies the global defence and aerospace sectors with gears, miniature gearboxes and safety-critical components for wing-surface actuators, engine controls, instrumentation and fuel pumps. Many years ago, the manufacturer tried broaching the bore profiles in steel worm shafts to transmit the drive to thrust reversers, but the length-to-diameter ratios were too high and the tools broke frequently.

So the company put the work out to a wire EDM subcontractor in the Midlands. The service was expensive, partly because the firm needed to have Nadcap (National Aerospace and Defence Contractors Accreditation Program) approval, which is a requirement of primes such as Boeing and Airbus, as well as tier-one aerospace companies, all of which FT Gearing supplies.
Today, the situation has been turned on its head following the arrival over an 18-month period of three Makino wire EDM machines at an FT Gearing satellite facility close to the company’s main facility. The machines were supplied by NCMT, UK agent for the Japanese machine builder. Within six months of the first arriving, the gear specialist had gained Nadcap approval, while the latest EDM machine installed mid-2017 provides capacity for internal development projects and a subcontract wire-EDM service.
Managing director Graham Fitzgerald, who started the business with his father Des in 1978, says: “We chose U3 wire eroders from Makino after we employed a skilled EDM machinist that has a lot of experience operating machines of the same make and rates them highly. He says that ISO programming on the Fanuc-based control is far easier than on some other EDM machines that employ two languages; the macros are simpler to create and operations like rotation and mirror imaging are straightforward.”
For further information www.ncmt.co.uk

Trumpf buys ultrashort pulsed laser specialist

Trumpf reports that it has acquired the laser manufacturer Amphos, which was founded in 2010 as a spin-out from RWTH Aachen and the Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology ILT.

Amphos develops and produces ultrashort pulsed lasers with high output power for manufacturing and research applications. The key to Amphos lasers is InnoSlab technology, which was co-developed by the company’s founders while still a part of ILT. InnoSlab will allow Trumpf to open up an entirely new range of parameters for its ultrashort pulsed lasers.
Amphos develops ultrashort pulsed lasers that feature output power between 200 and 400 W. The company also offers high-power lasers for research applications that have an output as high as 1.5 kW. Headquartered at the Herzogenrath technology centre in Aachen, Amphos and Trumpf agreed to not disclose the purchase price.
For further information www.trumpf.com

Sodick EDM offers staying power at Foremost

Foremost Specialist Products, a Derby-based subcontract manufacturer of precision engineered components, has invested in a new Sodick ALC600G CNC wire-erosion machine from Sodi-Tech EDM. Acquired to help the company take on the “complex and awkward parts that no else wants to tackle”, among the jobs being successfully accommodated by the machine are stainless steel tubular stem guides for power generator turbines.

“We won a contract for an awkward, tricky part and our existing EDM couldn’t offer four-axis cutting – and didn’t have enough memory to take on the job anyway,” explains the company’s engineering director Joe Walker. “This contract meant we would be tasked with producing a number of cross-holes in stainless steel stem guides for turbines used in power generators. The holes are angled in two planes are must be held to extremely tight tolerances.”
Although Foremost had never owned a Sodick EDM before, when Walker scrutinised the marketplace for a suitable machine capable of processing the stem guides and other complex parts, he was drawn to Sodi-Tech EDM.
“I really liked the feel of the Sodick ALC600G – such were its capabilities that it felt like we’d be moving from a small hatchback to a supercar,” he says. “We are finding the machine offers so many benefits – it is making particularly easy work of the stem guides. Some of the guides have six or eight holes, typically measuring from 1.3 to 3.0mm in diameter, but one of the latest has 28. The Sodick ALC600G gives us peace of mind that the work will be completed efficiently and accurately, every time. Moreover, I would say the new machine is up to 50% quicker on many jobs than the machine it replaced.”
For further information www.sodi-techedm.co.uk

EDM specialist expands milling capacity

EDM subcontractor RST Engineering decided 20 years ago that a manual tool change Hurco Hawk, due to the ease of shop floor programming on its twin-screen control system, was the best CNC milling machine to take over from hand-operated mills for manufacturing copper electrodes, jigs and fixtures. A 10-minute demonstration on the Hurco stand at the MACH 1998 machine tool show was enough to convince RST’s management that the power and simplicity of the software made it an obvious choice for this type of work.

The machine proved so fit-for-purpose that RST had no hesitation in replacing it in 2002 with an automatic tool change, three-axis Hurco VM2 machining centre, which was equipped with a similar proprietary Ultimax twin-screen control as well as a 4th axis Nikken table.
Over the next decade, the subcontractor milled and drilled more and more of its customers’ components on the machine, work that it was previously having to put out to another firm, thereby saving money and enjoying more control over production scheduling and delivery lead times. The VM2 is now dedicated again to machining only electrodes, however, and is sited in the EDM shop alongside four wire erosion machines, the same number of die sinkers and a pair of EDM hole-drilling machines.
More recently, a £300,000 investment included the purchase of a CMM and a Hurco VMX60SRTi five-axis machining centre of B-axis spindle design and 1524 x 660 x 610 mm capacity. It joined a smaller five-axis Hurco VMX30Ui of swivelling trunnion design purchased two years earlier and a larger three-axis Hurco VM30i installed the year before to cope with a wider variety of component sizes.
For further information www.hurco.co.uk