The firm, operating since 1992, specializes in production CNC turning. It started out in Art Fink’s garage with a single piece of equipment.

Today, Fink’s firm has five employees in a 6,000-sq.-ft. facility with five pieces of CNC equipment. Each piece has a sub-spindle and live tooling.

Above (1-r): ACF’s Doug Kappelmann, McClain Machine Tool’s Gene Jacobs & ACF’s Art Fink.

The new seven-axis Citizen Swiss turning center, purchased through McClain Machine Tool Solutions in St. Louis, features: a 10,000 rpm spindle; 18 tools (seven live); 700 series Mitsubishi Windows controls; bar capacity up to 20mm (3/4″); and a CAVL20 magazine barfeeder.

Fink noted that ACF Machine purchased the new Swiss turning center for the speed, efficiency and quality it offered, and to keep up with the company’s growth. He especially likes the unmanned capabilities that it provides and that it is all Servo controlled (no pneumatics or hydraulics).

The company, which is ISO compliant, produces small to large production runs from all standard metals and most plastics in many shapes and configurations. They can also work with customers on parts design and development.

ACF serves a wide range of commercial and industrial customers throughout the mid-America region.

When asked about what accounts for ACF Machine’s success and growth Fink stated, “Good customer relationships along with our industry knowledge and expertise.” Fink and Shop Manager Doug Kappelmann combine for almost 45 years of manufacturing experience.

In 2005 the firm, which offers custom CNC milling/turning and vacuum heat-treating has completed a 6,000-sq.-ft expansion, received three quality certifications, added three new CNC lathes and celebrated its 4511 anniversary.Starting in 1960 with a crew of three in a 2,000-sq.-ft. facility, Asbury Machine started out producing roller bearings.Today, the company’s crew of 25 works two shifts in a 20,000-sq.-ft. facility producing parts for such industries as: petroleum, construction, mining, electronics and food processing.

The most recent equipment additions include three Hardinge Talent CNC lathes (two model 1078 and one 852) purchased through Kansas-Oklahoma Machine Tools’ (KOMT) Tulsa office. The two-axis lathes feature 12 tooling stations. One is equipped with a barfeeder and parts-catcher.

“We appreciate the value the Hardinge lathes offer,” stated Asbury Machine’s Plant Manager Paul Brown. “We like the standard features, (such as high-pressure coolant and fanuc controls) and working with a U.S. machine tool builder. We also know that the KOMT crew will take care of us.”

The company has 15 pieces of CNC equipment, including 11 lathes (nine 2-axis and two 4-axis) two horizontal machining centers and two vertical machining centers.

Asbury Machine works with all standard metals and plastics. Their lathes can handle parts up to 14″ in diameter and 23″ in length, while their machining area can handle work up to 20″ in cube size. The company can handle small runs as well as large runs.

In the spring, the company received certification to three different quality standards. These are: American Petroleum Institute (API) QI; ISO 9001:2000 and ISO/TS 29001. Additional equipment for its QA lab is planned for the future.

The firm also produces its own line of tricone rotary drill bits for the mining, petroleum and construction industries under the Throop Rock Bit name.

As he considered the company’s history of growth and expansion, Asbury Machine President Garry Hayes attributed the success to, “Quality and ontime delivery combined with our experienced crew (average tenure is 10-15 years) and continually upgrading our equipment.”

In multispindle machining, the longest operation at a given position dictates the time required to make a complex part. Generally, the position dedicated to working on a part’s back end takes the longest time, because just one spindle performs different operations.

To overcome this problem, Tornos Technologies US Corp. (Brookfield, CT) has developed the MultiDECO 20/Sd, an eight-spindle machine with two independent, three-axis backworking stations. In essence, according to the company, it’s a ten-position machine.

In operation, positions one through six are used to work on the front of the part. Every two indexes, two parts are cut off in positions seven and eight. Those parts are then taken by the two independent pickoff spindles, and presented to as many as five tools per part for backworking. In theory, then, if the longest front-work operation is 10 sec, and the backworking position requires 20 sec, cycle time would still be 10 sec.

Further enhancing productivity and quality are the eight independent motorized spindles. Adjustable spindle speeds range from O to 8000 rpm. The RPM is optimized for each position. The goal with the machine is for parts to come off complete, with no secondary operations required other than inspection and washing, ready for packaging and shipping.

Tornos says that as many as 40 parts/min can be produced on the machine, and it maintains part tolerances of 0.0002″ (0.005 mm). Accommodating part diams to 20 mm, the machine can be equipped with a palletizer, or parts may be placed on a conveyor belt. A dedicated bar feeder holds up to 80 bars, and standard tool attachments permit rotary milling, polygon and thread milling, broaching, and cross-drilling operations. Circle 201

VisualMill 4.0, a PC-based CAM package for programming three-and four-axis operations on machining centers, features fourth-axis continuous machining, plunge roughing/re-roughing, high speed machining and optimized horizontal finishing.

This version introduces several new options for tool-path creation. For example, the between-two-curves method can be applied to complex flow areas, such as grooves with contoured sidewalls and fillets. Optimized horizontal/vertical finishing allows contoured surfaces to be machined with uniform scallops left on the part. A fourth-axis continuous machining feature facilitates programming of machines with rotary tables.

Improvements include high speed roughing with smooth cut connections to eliminate jerky movements that reduce tool life and cause excessive wear on machine axes. Smoothing of corners and arc fitting are said to promote more efficient machining at high feed rates. Horizontal re-roughing capability is now based on operations so that the cut model from previous operations is used to calculate new tool paths. Parallel finishing has been revised with a Z-containment option to stop machining at a preset Z level. An upgrade to flat area finishing allows pocketing tool paths to be applied in addition to parallel machining tool paths for improved efficiency.

The APC milling chuck is said to provide holding power up to four times that of shrink-fit and hydraulic toolholder systems. Runout is guaranteed to be less than 0.00012″ TIR at 2.5 x diameter. End mills are said to be easily changed on the chuck with the supplied hex key. Coolant-through capability is standard on all models. The chuck is offered in two size ranges: 3 mm to 14 mm and 12 mm to 20 mm. Both inch- and metric-size collets are available from stock.

The KB1000 vertical CNC milling machine has an angular table dimension of 1,400 mm x 320 mm. The machine has a travel of 1,120 mm for the X axis, a cross-travel of 450 mm for the Y axis and vertical travel of 650 mm for the Z axis. Spindle speed ranges from 60 to 6,000 rpm, and the machine uses a Siemens 802S control system. Positioning accuracy is 0.01/300 mm and repeatability is 0.005 mm.

Flexdeburr radially-compliant tools have floating air-turbine motor and spindle arrangement that provides deburring tip’s radial compliance to perform consistently on irregular part patterns. Pneumatically controlled tools allow cutting bit to follow part profile, maintaining constant force on part surface. Pivot bearing provides radial movement. Tool requires clean, dry, non-lubricated air for spinning cutting file and applying radial force.

ATI Industrial Automation, a leading engineering-based world developer of robotic peripheral equipment, will be introducing Flexdeburr, a new line of radially-compliant deburring tools for robotic and CNC applications at IMTS 2004, Booth #6241, McCormick Place, Chicago, Illinois, September 8-15. The Flexdeburr models are patent-pending, radially-compliant deburring tools for robotic and automated deburring applications. The innovative deburring tools have a unique floating motor and spindle arrangement that provides the deburring tip’s radial compliance to perform consistently on irregular part patterns.

Conventional automated deburring tools can perform adequately along a straight edge or surface, with little or no compliance for cavities or protrusions, but fail when part tolerances or paths are not exact. The inherent design of the pneumatically controlled Flexdeburr allows the cutting bit to accurately follow the part profile, maintaining a constant force on the part surface. A constant force during deburring is the most successful method for automatic applications.

The Flexdeburr has an air-turbine motor and spindle arrangement mounted within a durable housing and uses a pivot bearing to provide radial movement. The tool mounts to a robot, CNC machine, or fixture and requires clean, dry, non-lubricated air for spinning the cutting file as well as applying radial force. The Flexdeburr is available in several models in a variety of size and RPM ranges.

Other ATI Industrial Automation products include Automatic Tool Changers, Multi-axis Force/Torque Sensing Systems, Robotic Deburring Tools, Robotic Crash Protection Devices and Compliance Devices. Our mission is to provide customers with high-quality robotic peripheral devices, tooling and sensors that enhance customer profitability by increasing the effectiveness, flexibility and safety of their automation applications.

What Is It? A hard turning lathe. Configuration? It’s a modular machine that features one spindle, one turret, and a four-axis swing arm robot for part handling.

Key Specs? The spindle has a 20-hp motor. The turret has eight positions. A Fanuc control is deployed.

Considerations? Hard turning can work as an alternative to grinding. The machine is built as a module, so the potential for lines to be created out of several is there (especially given the deployment of robotic automation).

What’s It Called? The EWB-AL aluminum tooling system from BIG Kaiser Precision Tooling (Elk Grove Village, IL; www.bigkaiser.com).

What Is It? Ultra lightweight automatically balanced precision boring heads for diameters ranging from 3.937 to 8.000 in.)

Key Specs? The tooling system uses two different heads to cover the entire diameter range. It is designed for cutting speeds up to 6,600 sfpm. There’s micrometric adjustment via dials that are graduated in 0.0005-in. increments as well as a Vernier scale that permits setting to 0.0001-in./diameter.

Considerations? Several. Because these heads are made of a hard-coated high-tensile aluminum, their weight is one-third that of steel, then when you add other tooling elements (e.g., extenders) that are also aluminum, the total tooling weight can be half of that of ordinary tools, which is an aid during automatic toolchange procedures. (The hard coating, incidentally, helps extend tool life.) The balance that is provided by the adjustment is particularly important for boring at high speeds with polycrystalline diamond (PCD) or cubic boron nitride (CBN) tools, especially as this facilitates improved surface finish.

The most outstanding feature of FAGOR AUTOMATION’s CNC systems is their operating friendliness, simple and intuitive, which gives them a competitive edge widely acknowledged by our customers. There are standard models with ISO and high level programming with the possibility of conversational programming that make them adaptable to both single-part work and long runs.

Conversational CNC’s from FAGOR AUTOMATION (8055iTC/MC) may be adapted to the usual work method of a shop and have been designed to make intuitive programming easier for the operator; they have an interactive editor based on operations associated with each one of the processes that make up the machining of a part. The previous graphic simulation helps verify each operation and correct the data entered.

The system is programmed very easily. All the automatic operations have an interactive help, geometry defining area and other areas to set the machining conditions of the roughing and finishing stages with several editing levels or types of cycles with their own screen. This minimizes the preparation time; and any operator, without previous programming knowledge, can operate the CNC and carry out typical operations efficiently.

Its intelligent profile editor, similar to an integrated mini CAD, helps create profiles without the need for complex calculations by directly entering the values and parameters of the part, run a previous simulation and machine the part defined. If the part is too complicated, the preparation may be faster than when using an external CAD-CAM

Telediagnosis and Setup Assistance On FAGOR AUTOMATION CNC’s

FAGOR AUTOMATION has developed the Telediagnosis option to remotely control all the incidences that may occur on the machine.

Just connect the CNC with the PC of the Technical Department via the internet through a modem. This way, the technician, from his work table and at his own PC can remotely manipulate and observe the system status (CNC-drives-motors). This functionality may be used to detect PLC program errors, do a setup, or change parameters (CNC, motors mad drives), saving in travel expenses and labor of the technicians and minimizing machine down time by receiving assistance and error diagnosis immediately.

In order to facilitate the setup, it offers assistance such as the oscilloscope function and the circular geometry test.

The Oscilloscope function shows the response of the axes in time. With this feature, the signals may be seen directly at the CNC. (variables of regulation, path, feedback, etc.) without requiring external devices to check the status and facilitate the adjustments of the machine. The advantage of this feature is that the setup and the troubleshooting of incidences are faster and the diagnosis easier (even remotely) because the signals generated by the oscilloscope may be sent by fax or email.

The Circular Geometry Test may be used to cheek the behavior of the axes when doing a circle by enlarging the measuring errors of the axes. This function helps detect mechanical misadjustments and check the performance of the electronic equipment quickly while saving on additional devices.

The Kizma CncGcoder is a hand-held computer data storage device for CNC machine tool users. It can be used to hack up, download and edit CNC machine tool G-code programs on the shop floor. It has a news program file management system and a simplified PC data interface. The built-in camera automatically saves photos with the program names and provides a zoom function to enhance picture clarity in the Setup Saver mode. The system also includes a machining calculator, tapping calculator, carbide grade and geometry advisors and machining data converter. The device comes with associated software and interface cables.