FEATURE ON EDM

50% productivity boost at Neptune

Hertford-based Neptune Engineering has continued investing in the latest Sodick die-sink technology by acquiring a new AD35L machine from Sodi-Tech EDM. Offering up to 50% more speed than the machine it replaced, the Sodick AD35L has eliminated a bottleneck and delivered important extra capacity to this progressive toolmaking specialist.

“Due to increasing order books we were encountering a bottleneck in our die-sink EDM processes,” states managing director Gary Statham. “We had an ageing machine that needed replacing, so the decision was taken to invest. Having had such good performance from our existing Sodick machines over the past five years, we decided to return to Sodi-Tech EDM.”
As luck would have it, soon after the AD35L had been installed, a significant order arrived from one of Neptune’s electrical industry customers for a series of six-cavity injection moulds. The tools are used to mould domestic plugs, sockets and switches for a major electrical brand.
“The timing could not have been better – as the new Sodick is at least 50% faster than the machine it replaced, we have been able to process the tooling much quicker,” says Statham. “Our new Sodick machine will be busy on this work for a number of months to come.”
Each mould tool and insert is complex, as plugs, sockets and switches typically contain features such as compound curvature, blended radii and freeform surfaces. The cavities and inserts produced by the new Sodick AD35L are all manufactured from tool steels such as H13 to tolerances within ±0.01 mm. Moreover, the company typically seeks a ‘zero finish’, essentially a polished surface which does not require any secondary operations; a factor that is readily accommodated by the AD35L.
For further information www.sodi-techedm.co.uk

Warwick to focus on Excetek

Following “an exceptional 12 months of business” with repeat/new customer orders and enquiries for the range of Excetek CNC wire-cut machines, Warwick Machine Tools will go forward concentrating exclusively on providing pre- and post-sales and service support for the brand in the UK and Ireland.

However, existing UK customers with ONA EDM machines will continue to be supported.
National sales manager Andrew Kilshaw explains the rationale behind the decision: “We have had an exceptional long-term relationship with ONA, supplying and supporting customers in many industry sectors, and we will not abandon those customers with older and more recent ONA EDM machines as we have the most technical experience and expertise to support them in the UK. However, the continued growth of Excetek demands our full focus and the tough decision was recently taken to end the business partnership amicably.”
Dudley-based Electro-Discharge Limited provides a good example of customers returning to WMT for further wire EDM capacity from Excetek. The company now has three of the latest generation Excetek CNC wire cut machines, which were installed to operate automatically at speed, to close tolerances in a ‘lights-out’ environment. Electro-Discharge now has two Excetek V650Gs and a smaller V400G CNC wire-cut machine.
General manager Rupin Vadera says: “Although we were aware of the Excetek range, we didn’t initially fully appreciate the capability and functionality offered. We arranged a demonstration at Warwick Machine Tools’ showroom and everyone was impressed with both the build quality and performance. The price-to-performance ratio is exceptional. The three new VG series machines are in addition to two larger V850G machines installed here last year.”
For further information www.warwickmachinetools.co.uk

PCD tooling firm relies on Vollmer

Integral to the success of the PCD tooling division at Guhring’s £12m manufacturing facility on Birmingham’s Advanced Manufacturing Hub is the company’s Vollmer QWD750 and QWD750H wire-erosion machines.

Guhring UK’s national sales manager Dave Hudson says: “The Guhring manufacturing plant runs three shifts for 5½ days a week, while the automation level of the Vollmer machines in the PCD department only requires two shifts per day. This labour saving is credit to the Vollmer machines and our lean manufacturing processes and workflow scheduling.
“For example, our QWD750H has a 12-station tool facility that is robot loaded; this allows us to set up simple, short-run cutters during manned shifts while more time consuming and complex tools run overnight,” he adds. “In parallel, our manually loaded Vollmer QWD750 wire-erosion machine will be loaded with standard PCD tools during manned shifts, with complex five/six-fluted or stepped tools loaded overnight. Some of these special tools may require 18+ hours of wire erosion, permitting long periods of automated lights-out or weekend working.”
It is clear that the Vollmer QWD machines are central to the output, precision and quality of Guhring tools.
“Manufacturers increasingly require multi-function and often multi-stepped cutting tools to reduce processes and cycle times, and improve quality and process stability,” says Hudson. “This is particularly true of OEMs and companies in high-volume environments. To serve these customers, some special tools will have more than 18 to 30 PCD segments that are stepped along the tool shank. The Vollmer QWD machines are extremely precise and will hold a 5 µm tolerance in our temperature-controlled building with no problems. This tight-tolerance capability eliminates tool-grinding processes in many instances.”
For further information www.vollmer-group.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