Compact robotic systems from Halter CNC Automation are suited to loading and unloading CNC machine tools, as family business Armbruster GmbH in Steinach, southwest Germany reports. The same machine tending technology is available in the UK market through 1st Machine Tool Accessories.

Armbruster employs about 130 staff and specialises in manufacturing complex, high-quality products such as surgical instruments and implants for the medical sector. It also provides subcontract machining services to a broad range of industries in batch sizes from 1 to 1000.

Florian Schätzle, team leader for machining support at Armbruster, says: “We’ve been committed to automation for a long time. The milling section is fully automated, although the eroding area is only partially autonomous. As regards turning and turn-milling, most production is automated by bar magazines but traditionally we load and unload billets manually for chuck-type work. We therefore decided to invest in a billet loading and unloading robot from Halter, a Universal Premium 35, which tends an existing Mazak Integrex i200 chucking lathe on the shop floor.”

The new solution made it possible to increase the number of workpieces of more than 200 mm diameter in the buffer of the robot cell from six parts previously to an additional 16 parts, i.e. a total of 22. Longer shafts from which several individual parts are machined may be similarly accommodated, enabling even longer periods of unattended production.

Says Schätzle comments: “Our staff realise that the robot cell enables them to organise their working hours better, for example for quality control of finished parts, without having to be present at the Mazak every minute to avoid machine downtime.”
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