Aqueous cleaning front and centre

Among the machines being showcased by Ecoclean (Stand 660, Hall 6) will be the EcoCwave, which is designed for challenging aqueous cleaning tasks.

Offering immersion and spraying processes, the system has a vacuum-tight work chamber and is capable of anything from preliminary and intermediate washing, right up to precision cleaning. To achieve this flexibility, the machine comes with two or three tanks as standard. Each tank has a separate wash solution circuit with full-flow and bypass filtration. The design of the roll-over unit integrated in the work chamber ensures that all sides of the part to be cleaned are fully exposed to the wash solution during ultrasonic or spray cleaning.
For further information www.ecoclean-group.net

Ask the robotics experts

On the stand of Kawasaki Robotics (Stand 472, Hall 6), the company will provide an opportunity for visitors to take advantage of a confidential robotics advice service.

Show visitors who might be thinking of automating but are uncertain about whether it is necessary, viable, affordable or achievable, can meet with a Kawasaki Robotics expert for an independent assessment. To ensure that any advice provided is indeed absolutely independent, show visitors need not provide their name or company name when they meet with the Kawasaki Robotics experts, just their job function.
Ian Hensman of Kawasaki Robotics, who together with fellow industry stalwart Malcolm Akers, will be providing the service throughout every day of MACH 2020, says: “What matters here is independence and anonymity. This is not about selling robots, it is about providing experienced insight into the advantages and possible pitfalls in potential applications, and offering overarching guidance and advice in such a way that potential users can better validate their ideas before investing too much time, money and resource into taking things further.”
For further information https://robotics.kawasaki.com/

Fast saw-blade production from Vollmer

Vollmer will be demonstrating its circular saw-blade production expertise in Hall 20 on Stand 550 with the Vollmer CHX840/HS CNC grinding machine and the Loroch Evolution K850-M.

The latter is designed for the production of metal-cutting saw blades. Incorporating a 19” touchscreen CNC, the K850-M enables blades to be programmed in minutes with data input directly at the machine via the colour display. Suitable for processing HSS saws, solid-carbide saws and friction saw blades, the Loroch Evolution K850-M has a direct-drive grinding wheel configuration that reduces power loss and eliminates undesirable vibration that can impact blade quality.
For further information www.vollmer-group.com

When precision creates joy

The headline phrase is not commonly associated with mechanically engineered parts, but it sums up how one company owner views his production facility.

Werner Buschor owns Buschor Praezisionsmechanik AG, a medium-sized subcontract manufacturer in Switzerland, where he had two growing problems. The first was the increasingly tight nature of customer tolerances, prompting a reliance on operators to ‘tweak’ programs and tooling to achieve the desired results. His second issue was delivery times becoming shorter, causing him to look at unmanned production in the evenings and at weekends.
When trying to find answers to his accuracy problem Buschor found Kern Microtechnik and soon realised that the Kern Micro milling machine was also able to solve his second problem of working unmanned.
“The Kern Micro is the first milling centre that can stand up to our measuring machine,” he says. “The measuring machine has a measurement uncertainty of half a thousandth of a millimeter,
while the Kern Micro offers a positioning accuracy of half a thousandth of a millimetre. Our first Kern Micro was immediately connected to a System 3R automation system, with the possibility of adding another machine. The large tool magazine with 186 tools and the repeatability of the Kern Micro are ideal for automatic production.”
Key to repeatability is the thermal stability of the machine, with its smart cooling management system that ensures the temperature of structural components remains constant with a maximum deviation of 0.2ºC.
To improve matters even more, a second Kern Micro has been installed and connected to the workpiece changer. Kern is represented in the UK by Rainford Precision.
For further information https://rainfordprecision.com/

Advancing into new dimensions

The first portal milling machine in the new Endura 900 Linear Compact series from Fooke is now in operation at Arnstädter Werkzeug und Maschinenbau (AWM). The installation is also a premiere for AWM: the company is venturing into new territory and can now handle tool weights of up to 20 tonne (previous capacity was 10 tonne). Fooke is represented in the UK by Phase 3 CNC.

“We had already set our sights on another supplier, but became aware of Fooke through a partner company,” says board member Klaus Kleinsteuber.
A convincing argument for AWM was the fact that the machine could be installed without foundations. On a relatively small footprint, the large machining area allows five-sided machining of workpieces made from steel, cast iron and aluminium, with traverse paths of up to 3500 x 2500 x 1500 mm.
The Arnstadt-based company uses its new machine for the fine-finish machining of injection moulds in order to achieve the required surface quality and necessary dimensional and geometrical accuracy. Above all, however, AWM can also use the Endura 900 Linear Compact to expand its customer base in the 10-20 tonne tool servicing sector, as responses to its expanded range of services have already shown. This factor is associated with a further advantage: large tools do not have to be dismantled first and reassembled after maintenance, but can now be machined in one piece – an enormous time benefit.
“This gives us a unique selling point in the region,” concludes Kleinsteuber.
For further information https://phase3cnc.co.uk/