Editor’s Pick

Record-breaking day at showroom opening

XYZ Machine Tools officially opened its new showroom at Slough earlier this month, an event that resulted in a record-breaking day for machine sales.

“This is the best one-day open house that we have ever seen, with over 50 companies taking the time to visit XYZ and see what was on offer,” says managing director Nigel Atherton. “By lunchtime we had already taken orders for 15 machines, with the afternoon proving just as popular when a further eight machine orders were taken. The total value of sales was just shy of £800,000.”
The new showroom is located just off the M4 motorway and is available for customer demonstrations and training, being a relatively short drive for customers from across the southeast and central England regions. “Visitor numbers at this opening event shows that we have selected a good location,” says Atherton. “This will allow more customers the opportunity to see demonstrations of XYZ machines, as well as receive training once they have made a purchase.”
For further information www.xyzmachinetools.com

Machine tool museum set to open

Yamazaki Mazak is set to open its own historic machine tool museum on the 100th anniversary of its founding.

The museum, which will open in autumn 2019, is located in Minokamo, Japan, within the newly renovated underground factory of Yamazaki Mazak Optonics Corporation, currently home to the company’s laser manufacturing operations.
Mazak’s interactive museum will give visitors the opportunity to see, touch and learn about machine tools and their history, with the overall aim being to celebrate the history of machining and educate the next generation of engineers. The museum will exhibit traditional machine tools in operation, as well as showcase the many products they produce. In addition, the museum will be equipped with an FMS area, where the latest machine tools with integrated Industry 4.0 capability will be displayed.
For further information www.mazakeu.co.uk

Workpiece palletising and handling systems

1st Machine Tool Accessories has introduced a range of workpiece handling cells that allow components to be clamped manually on to pallets, automatically loaded into store and subsequently retrieved for robotic transfer into and out of machining centres.

The equipment, which is manufactured by French company Engineering Data, is suitable for long periods of unattended and lights-out running. According to 1st MTA, the modular pallet-handling systems are said to increase production output from non-pallet-change machining centres by up to 50%.
A representative model, EasyBox T30, was demonstrated on the 1st MTA stand at MACH 2018 in April. The compact system with a footprint of just 2 sq m can be configured to feed a machine from the left, right or front. Two versions are available for storing 42 or 64 pallets. They are equipped with a three-axis robot capable of handling components up to 200 x 200 x 180 mm, and a maximum load of 30 kg, including workpiece, fixture and pallet.
Half a day training is all that is needed for an operator to be conversant with the system, which is designed to automate small to medium batch production. The single load/unload station is positioned at an ergonomic height at the front of the store for convenient workpiece clamping and unclamping. An adjacent touch-screen panel for operating the robot is easily interfaced with all major types of machine tool control including Heidenhain, Siemens, Fanuc and Mazatrol.
A larger EasyBox T100 in a compact version for handling 100 kg pallets is also available. Additionally offered are: a rail-mounted linear version, L-range, for feeding up to six machining centres; and a 350° R-range rotary version for feeding one or two machining centres.
For further information www.1mta.com

Aerospace stars celebrated at awards

Stars of the southwest aerospace and defence sector were celebrated last week at the second WEAF Aerospace Ambassadors Awards under the wings of Concorde at Aerospace Bristol.

Organised by the West of England Aerospace Forum (WEAF), the annual awards focus on the cream of the industry and shine a spotlight on their outstanding achievements.
Backed by headline sponsors Safran and SKF Aerospace, the awards attracted scores of entries.
The southwest has one of the largest concentrations of aerospace and defence capabilities in Europe, and is the largest aerospace cluster in the UK, worth more than £7bn per annum. Individual award sponsors include Airbus, Castlemead Insurance, Bridgwater & Taunton College, Trowers and Hamlins LLP and Aro PR and Marketing.
For further information www.weaf.co.uk

Battle robots get a five-axis boost

For followers of the BBC’s Robot Wars programme, the names Sir Killalot, Shunt, Matilda and Dead Metal will be familiar as the house robots whose sole purpose is to lie in wait for competing bots and take their opportunity to destroy them.

These mean weapons are designed and built by two brothers in a small corner of their family business that is more used to manufacturing furniture castors.
Grant and James Cooper both worked for the family company of Priory Castor and Engineering in Birmingham, but as that business changed they saw a need to diversify and put their knowledge of engineering design to good use. The result was Robo Challenge, a design and creative engineering company that now works alongside TV production companies to create one-off robots and engineering concepts.
Robo Challenge employs an XYZ LPM vertical machining centre to create a range of parts from aluminium, titanium and stainless steel.
“We tend to be at the end of the process after weeks, if not months of discussion have taken place,” says Grant Cooper. “We are then asked to produce complex machines in a short space of time. For example, the four house robots for Robot Wars were designed and built in less than eight weeks, but typically we get one to three weeks to complete a project, so an efficient machine that can be used by anyone here was essential for us. The LPM with its ProtoTrak control, tool changer and large table, works perfectly for us, especially as just about everything we produce is a one-off.”
For further information www.xyzmachinetools.com