The International Manufacturing Technology Show is one of the largest industrial trade shows in the world, featuring 1,900 exhibitors and 100,000 visitors. The event is held every two years in September at McCormick Place, Chicago.
Don't miss out on the biggest show in Manufacturing - Register today! On-site registration is open Monday, Sept. 12 through Saturday, Sept. 17 in all four buildings of McCormick Place. Tooling & Workholding Systems Pavilion in the West Building is open 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. Several of our Principals will have products on display at IMTS 2016. Below is where you can find them at the show.
Pavilion: Tooling & Workholding Systems
Let us know if you're attending and let's make plans to meet each other in Chicago!
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We are very excited to announce a new partnership with 5th Axis Workholding located in San Diego, CA. 5th Axis has created a very nice dovetail workholding system for use in 5 axis milling and can also be used in turning. Please give them a big welcome to out family of principals! 5th Axis Workholding was created out of shear necessity. When Co-CEO’s Steve Grangetto and Chris Taylor started 5th Axis Inc. in 2005, they immediately recognized the need for quality workholding that addressed many of the common issues machinists encounter when moving into the 4th and 5th axis machining. “Fixturing may be the ultimate in problem-solving,” he continues. “If you don’t start with a good, solid fixture – in either 3- or 5-axis work – you’re not going to end up with a good part. More axes just add more layers of complexity.” “A lot of people still aren’t used to thinking in 5 axes when it comes to fixturing,” observes Chris. “They often design them to get a part on and off quickly, without stopping to think about clearance issues.” In 5-axis work, A- and B-axis movement can seriously impact Z-axis clearance. Careless designs invite costly crashes. Longer tools lessen some clearance issues, but introduce problems of their own.
“Fixturing may be the ultimate in problem-solving. If you don’t start with a good, solid fixture – in either 3- or 5-axis work – you’re not going to end up with a good part. More axes just add more layers of complexity.” “When the fixture is right at the beginning,” Steve continues, “we can let the machine take care of most other problems. But, there are one or two areas that require further attention . . .” At the September 2014 IMTS show, Emmett Quigley, the Manager of the Airborne Instrument Development Lab at NASA Ames Research Center, was looking for a modular workholding system that would help him to quickly change over the fixturing on his table to meet the lab's demands of rapid prototyping and development.
Demanding design requirements for future developmentQuigley had several initial requirements:
Emmett looked at a couple of systems but post IMTS only mPower had followed up with the information he needed to start the design. He found that the Modern Industries mPower modular tombstones and fixturing systems would meet his needs, but would need some customization to truly get the maximum use of his machines table space and travels. The mPower system was to be implemented on two machines to begin with. The first would be the labs workhorse, a Deckel MAHO DMU70V. The next machine would be a Deckel Maho MH600C Universal Milling Machine. The MAHO is unique in that it has both a horizontal and vertical spindle as well as a full fourth axis capability. After several email exchanges and design discussions with regional manager Chris Savolainen and Ron Bemis, the Application Engineer at Modern Industries the team spent from from October 15th through 17th reviewing the various part shapes and size requirements to define the subplate hole locations that would provide the very best versatility to meet the needs of the lab.
It was decided to go with 2" x 2", 1/2 -13 bolt hole pattern in 1.5 “ thick aluminum plates. However they needed to modify the DMU plate by adding the through hole so they can reach the table with their tool setter. Quigley then need to duplicate the plates in steel. The final requirement was that the lab needed to have the locating/clamping features below the surface as these plates will need to be surfaced from time to time. Due to budget constraints the system had to be developed with consideration for the longer term lab requirements so that it could eventually expand for upcoming new projects. Preparing for the unknown problem has always been part of the mission at NASA so long term contingency planning is the norm. In June of 2015, phase one of the project was implemented on the Deckel Maho DMU70V machine. Quigley's thoughts on the implementation thus far: According to Savolainen "NASA's Airborne Instrument Development Lab at Ames really considers both current needs and future needs when they look at workholding systems. The machines and equipment have to be versatile enough to handle current projects but also new research projects that might not even exist until 10 or 15 years from now. They really put a great deal of thought into products before they get them and it's actually a real pleasure to work with engineers who plan and think so far into the future!" More and more, we are asked this fairly simple question from shops who want to purchase BIG-PLUS® dual contact tooling from sources other than us. One would certainly think that this must be the situation, given that more than 100 of the world’s top selling machine tool builders have adopted the BIG-PLUS spindle system as their own standard. The truthful answer to anyone who asks is that this system has not been standardized by any governing body such as ISO, DIN, JIS, or ASME. This comparison of licensed BIG-PLUS vs. unlicensed BIG-PLUS tooling shows how little or no taper contact in the unlicensed tool holder can allow āfloatā in the spindle taper with no positive radial location, causing large cutter runout and immediate fretting corrosion on that spindle face that can severely damage the spindle. BIG Daishowa, the original developer of this system and a major reason that it has been so widely accepted throughout the world, still holds all of the proprietary information and, more importantly, the grand master gages that are used for reproducing spindles and tooling. Access to this information and gaging is well protected by BIG and is only provided to those companies who acquire a license agreement, mostly to protect the integrity of the system, which uses very close tolerances in order to function at its designed performance level. The popularity of BIG-PLUS has surged over the past ten years as many shops have tried the system and have witnessed for themselves the huge benefits in higher performance and accuracy over standardized taper contact tooling systems, such as CAT or BT. Other dual contact systems, such as HSK, have also seen a rise in popularity for similar reasons, but perhaps not with all of the same benefits of BIG-PLUS. Unfortunately, all of this increased popularity and demand has been accompanied by a surge in unlicensed copies to the market that offer all kinds of promises and prices never seen before. BUYER BEWARE I cannot fault a shop for purchasing cheap dual contact tooling after being told by their supplier that it will work just as good as the originals for half the price. After all, human nature wants to find the best offer at the best price – that sort of deal is capitalism at its best. As consumers, we are all confronted with choices every day about buying similar products that do similar functions from a wide range of suppliers and costs. For me personally, I usually decide to buy cheap only when I know the product will be used one time and then thrown away. On all other purchases, I’m in it for the long haul and willing to pay higher prices. At the end of the day, I want to be confident I made the right choice for the long term, and I’m willing to pay more for my peace of mind. Master gages for tooling are quite common. Generally all of them are traceable to a known master to compare the accuracy for rate of taper for production of tool holders, such as CAT or BT. ISO dual contact systems such as HSK rely on the use of a grand master gage that all other master gages are produced to, thereby guaranteeing that all HSK tool holders are the same everywhere in the world. Our company decided to find out how the world’s leading suppliers of HSK tool holders compared to the tolerances of the ISO standard. After acquiring more than 30 HSK-A63 taper tools from our competitors from all over the world and making a detailed quality inspection of the taper itself, we found that 50 percent of the samples were not in tolerance.
What are the consequences to a poorly researched choice in BIG-PLUS tooling? Unless all of the tools are marked “BIG-PLUS® Spindle System-License BIG DAISHOWA SEIKI,” the use of tooling not made by BIG Daishowa or its licensees may result in unsatisfactory performance and/or damage to very expensive spindles. Conditions producing such unsatisfactory performance include:
Jack Burley Jack Burley is the vice president of sales and engineering at BIG KAISER Precision Tooling Inc., 2600 Huntington Boulevard, Hoffman Estates, IL 60192, 847-228-4011, Fax: 847-228-0881, [email protected], www.bigkaiser.com. Masa Tool introduces a 5C Microconic cartridge that maintains 5 µm concentricity and is now available for machining centers, CNC lathes, CNC mills, gang-tool lathes, like Omniturn, CNC mill/turn, like Nakamura, Miyano, Mori-Seiki, and even rotary indexers as well as tool and cutter grinders!
Start measuring tools in less than 5 minutes! The STP MAGIS generation of tool presetting and measuring systems, from Big Kaiser, has revolutionized the value of entry level tool measurement. The innovative SimpleVision control delivers all of the needed measuring features and functions in a user friendly, clean and trouble free single screen user interface.
SAVINGS: $4,790.73 PROMO PACKAGE PRICE: $17,879.00 In the spirit of the upcoming holidays Techniks is offering a 59 piece CAT 400 tooling package for only $2,250! The sale will take you through Halloween and Thanksgiving but it does end just after Christmas and before the New Year.
The package includes ER Collet Chucks, End MIll Holders, as well as ER16 & ER32 collet sets. There's in a 5 pocket 90 degree face mill and inserts in the promotion! |
NEWSOur NEWS blog section is written by several different people. Sometimes, it from our team here at Next Generation Tooling & at other times it's by one of the manufacturer's we represent. Archives
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