INTERNATIONAL NEWS

Broadbent Stanley offers VTLs once more

Having produced its first lathe back in 1870, Broadbent Stanley has a long history of designing and manufacturing large-capacity machine tools. At one point the company offered a series of vertical turning lathes (VTLs) and now history is repeating itself with the announcement of a strategic agency agreement with Radar Industrial, a Taiwan-based manufacturer of CNC VTLs.

The agreement will see Broadbent Stanley actively market and sell the Radar range in many markets, including the UK, Ireland, Africa and the Middle East.
Radar VTLs are available in three model designations, the RAL-12, RAL-16 and RAL-20, with maximum turning diameters ranging from 1500 to 2400 mm (and turning heights up to 1600 mm), with a maximum workpiece weight of 13,000 kg on the largest machine. All three machines come as standard with the Fanuc 0i-TF CNC.
The Radar models are equipped with a 12-position tool changer, which can be increased to 18 on the optional M-specification machines, with nine of those positions being capable of handling driven tooling, powered by a 15 kW motor with up to 2400 rpm available for the live tooling. For the largest of the three machines, the main rotating table is powered by a 45 kW motor, with two speed ranges of 1-50 and 1-200 rpm controlled via a high-torque (up to 23,750 Nm) gearbox.
As would be expected of machines of this size and capability, construction is key. The main table features a novel hydraulic static bearing design, where a floating hydraulic bearing is combined with a heavy-duty roller bearing that sits in a one-piece base casting. The result of this design leads to what is claimed to be the ideal combination of increased table-load capacity and precision.
For further information www.broadbentstanley.co.uk

Euro projects

Lina Huertas, head of technology strategy for digital manufacturing at the Manufacturing Technology Centre (MTC) in Coventry, has been chosen to be on a jury of experts for the European Innovation Council (EIC) pilot.

Huertas is one of 87 experts drawn from 26 countries who will assess companies pitching innovation projects to the EIC SME Instrument, which supports innovators, entrepreneurs, small companies and scientists with funding opportunities and acceleration services. The EIC SME Instrument will fund around 4000 small companies that pass the rigorous process, through to 2020.
For further information www.the-mtc.org

Plating service for 3D-printed parts

Proto Labs has extended its in-house 3D-printing capabilities with the inclusion of specialist plating services for plastic parts built using stereolithography or SLS.

Components are plated with materials that include copper, nickel and chromium. Daniel Cohn, general manager of Proto Labs, Germany, says: “We have become increasingly aware of the significant enhancements plating makes to the capabilities of the resultant part, hence our move to offer these services in-house. Now, with plating technology and operational expertise, we support product testing and project progression even further.”
For further information www.protolabs.co.uk

Crowds expected at Expo Manufactura

The most important manufacturing event in Mexico, Expo Manufactura, is set to get underway on 6-8 February. Last year, over 330 exhibitors (91 from overseas) presented their products and services to around 12,400 visitors, and similar if not higher numbers are expected in 2018.

Staged at the Cintermex venue in Monterrey, among the special areas at the 22nd edition of the show are automation and robotics, additive manufacturing, medical manufacturing and plastics manufacturing. The LA Times recently reported that “Mexico is in the throes of a manufacturing boom”, with exports jumping 13% since 2012. The country has also climbed to become the world’s seventh largest producer of cars. MTI will once again be among the exhibitors at Expo Manufactura, where the team will be busy handing out copies of the show issue to all visitors interested in acquiring machine tools and associated equipment.
For further information www.expomanufactura.com.mx

Blum helps firm achieve 2 μm precision

A complex component incorporating four long slots among other features was posing problems for Timo Lehmann, the CEO of Karlheinz Lehmann GmbH in Oberwolfach, Germany. The solution for the subcontract manufacturer was ultimately provided by a Citizen Cincom M32 turning centre and a TC76-Digilog touch probe from Blum-Novotest.

“Highly complex components are part and parcel of our business, but manufacturing a quick-coupler for a compressed-air input was a tough nut to crack,” says Lehmann of the challenges posed by a project for customer Parker Hannifin GmbH. “The key components are made from hardened and coated free-cutting steel with threads, bores and four lightly tapered slots. The slots were the crucial point of the whole design.”
The parallelism of the slots was only allowed to vary by 2 μm from the reference values. Otherwise the fully automated machine that assembles the component unit at Parker-Hannifin, would abruptly stop. Moreover, the quick-coupling would not work if the tolerance was exceeded.
Blum’s TC76-Digilog touch probe proved the only cost-effective means of verifying the design’s dimensional accuracy. Analogue measurement is always advantageous for assessing areas or lines. If a switching digital probe were to be used in the Lehmann application, a very large number of points on the slots would have to be measured in order to attain an adequate resolution. In contrast, the TC76-Digilog scans across the surface at a measuring speed of 2 m/min. As this is happening, the system generates an extremely large number of values (50,000 per second in fact) in a fraction of the time required for analogue data acquisition.
For further information www.blum-novotest.com