Last autumn, motorsport subcontractor h2m needed to replace an ageing sliding-head CNC turn-mill centre at its Hinckley factory. Joint managing directors and owners, father and son team Andy and Martin Forryan, considered buying a replacement from the supplier of the original twin-spindle, 32 mm capacity slider, but insteadopted for a Cincom M32-VIIILFV from Citizen Machinery UK.

Around 3000-off is a large run for sliding-head turned parts at h2m, while the production of batches of relatively simple components up to 500-off is typical for unattended overnight running. However, the company completestrickier jobs during day shifts in batch sizes as low as 10-off, so speed of programming is essential to minimise machine downtime.

Andy and Martin paid particular attention to this issue, concluding that the Cincom lathe with Citizen’s Alkart Wizard programming system would be less expensive and several times faster than if purchasing the other lathe. The wizard assists and simplifies the creation of even complex cycles using a built-in code library, reference material and diagrams.

Sharing some detail of their deliberations, Martin says: “Alkart Wizard is an inexpensive option. We use it to prepare programs and prove them offline for virtually every sliding-head part we produce. We only program the occasional simple component directly at the control.

“Even complicated components take just 30-40 minutes to program in Alkart with only a further 15-20 minutes to check the cycle virtually in the wizard.So a new job is always up and running in under an hour.”

He contrasts this with the much longer and more expensive route that would have been needed with the other slider, for which a similar wizard was not available.

For further information www.citizenmachinery.co.uk