ATL Technology in Cardiff is a specialist manufacturer of medical devices, particularly energy-driven instruments used in minimally invasive surgery. These devices use low-voltage, high-current RF energy waveforms to seal, coagulate, dissect, vaporise, resect or mobilise tissue. ATL utilises two tool rooms to produce prototypes, tooling, jigs, fixtures, special in-house machinery for assembly and disassembly, and spare parts.
The R&D toolroom initially adopted an XYZ SMX 2500 bed millin 1997. Over time, the company expanded its capabilities with the addition of a 660 HD vertical machining centre, a 1340 lathe and an XYZ 500 LR vertical machining centre featuring linear rail technology.
Meanwhile, the maintenance tool room utilises an RLX 1630 lathe, an XYZ 1500 manual turret mill and an XYZ RMX 2-OP, which machines light alloy and plastic parts from stock materials. The recent acquisition of an XYZ 500 TMC in March 2023 further highlights ATL Technology’s long-standing investment in XYZ machines.
Process development engineer Stephen Greensays: “The XYZ 500 TMC has a larger working area that enables us to machine bigger mould tools, jigs and fixtures in-house. It has more power, a 12,000 rpm spindle that is ideal for small tools, and through-tool coolant. This capability makes it easy to machine tool steels for injection moulds and electrodes for die sinking. It is also good at deep-hole drilling, delivering faster material removal rates. Withsubcontracting, it took many weeks to deliver a tool. Now we can produce an entire tool within a week, or a single part to repair a production line breakdown within 24 hours.”
Tool-room technician Ashley Gardiner adds: “90% of our work is one-off, small batches or spares, so the 12 tool pockets on the 500 TMC are sufficient for most of our needs.”
For further information www.xyzmachinetools.com
