This is default featured slide 1 title

Go to Blogger edit html and find these sentences.Now replace these sentences with your own descriptions.

This is default featured slide 2 title

Go to Blogger edit html and find these sentences.Now replace these sentences with your own descriptions.

This is default featured slide 3 title

Go to Blogger edit html and find these sentences.Now replace these sentences with your own descriptions.

This is default featured slide 4 title

Go to Blogger edit html and find these sentences.Now replace these sentences with your own descriptions.

This is default featured slide 5 title

Go to Blogger edit html and find these sentences.Now replace these sentences with your own descriptions.

This is default featured slide 6 title

Go to Blogger edit html and find these sentences.Now replace these sentences with your own descriptions.

Tuesday 27 January 2015

5 axes in coffee with Breton MATRIX 1000 vertical milling cnc machine

To reduce cycle times, maintain very strict tolerances and optimize machinings, companies are increasingly turning to 5-axis machines tools on which after the blank has been loaded and clamped the finished part can be produced without any further repositioning.(By Giancarlo Giannangeli for TM- Teconologie Mecaniche)

Opem Spa started operating in Parma in 1974 in the field of industrial foods products weighing; from the beginnings no effort has been spared in continual search for innovative solutions. Enhancing performance and quality has always been a primary goal, in a philosophy that has allowed the Emilia-based company to achieve undisputed levels of technological excellence. Opem therefore has gradually gained ascendancy in the packaging industry, refining new machines that are now being sold all over the world.

Today coffee is the driving line, occupying first place in terms of sales, but the company also produces packaging lines for tea, barley coffee, herbal infusions, ice-cream mix powders, milk powder, spices and biscuits. Coffee is packaged in cans and pouches, in beans or ready-ground, although the lion's share currently lies with coffee pods. In this field Opem is the absolute world market leader, as confirmed by Fabio Binacchi, founder and president of the north Italian company.
«95% of our output is exported; we face fierce competition from German groups, but despite our relatively small size we are hailed for the quality of our products and have established an enviable reputation. We also have several major customers in Germany and despite the renowned German predilection for domestic production we recently supplied additional lines to several German companies that continue to insist on using our products. This seems to confirm that our consistent strategy of placing customers at the center of our development process has allowed us to build systems that offer the utmost productivity and reliability - the key quality prerogatives for industrial plant. As a dynamic SME we place the maximum emphasis on flexibility and our ability to supply completely bespoke systems».
The company was recently  classified by  Ucima (automatic machinery manufacturers association) and ranked number one in Italy in terms of net operating income and sales margin, surpassing all the big name manufacturers operating out of Italy's packaging valley in the Bologna area. On the European level the company came in second, preceded by a single German operator.

A high precision stable machine
Today, Opem operates out of a spacious factory where all systems are designed and built internally. The company has always insisted on keeping all stages of the development cycle in house, from the preliminary analysis preceding the design stage to construction of the various components and final assembly.
«Our focus is to guarantee the maximum quality levels at all times, so we consider it essential to retain full control of each stage of the process. This allows us to make instant priority changes whenever necessary without having to defer to contractors that, however reliable and well-intentioned, are unable to match the speed of response that we can guarantee with our own facilities».
That's why we have a fully-equipped workshop to build all the non-commercial components used in our systems directly in-house. To streamline and optimize our operations we recently purchased a Breton Matrix 1000 5-axis medium-large gantry center offering high speed machining and impeccable performancei.
For example, the carriage and beam travel on generously sized recirculating roller guideways that ensure high precision and stability: all axes are moved by a ground recirculating ball screw with a double preloaded ball nut assembly; position reading tasks are performed by optical linear encoders. Breton devoted special attention to controlling thermal expansion by cooling the ball nuts directly rather than merely cooling the ball screws, thus radically mitigating heat propagation directly at source. The axes are powered by the latest generation brushless servomotors controlled by digital drives.

Increasingly extreme performance levels
Matrix 1000 is a machining center for milling complex 3D shapes that must be machined to high precision and that call for continual axes interpolation. It may seem superfluous in a company that “simply” produces packaging systems, but in fact these automatic lines are composed of increasingly complex machines that offer impeccable performance in terms of operating speed, reliability, and repeatability of results through time. Customers in the industry are currently marshalling their resources because they need to boost productivity levels to produce ever higher numbers of packs per unit time, resulting in a race among suppliers to offer ever faster machines.

The productivity of the lines produced by Opem varies from system to system, but output can easily reach 1,200-1,300 pods/minute, each individually weighed and sealed in plastic wraps. An impressive production rate that makes it hard for a bystander to even see the products in the blur of motion they hurtle along the conveyors. Indeed, the only way to actually see products in transit is to observe the production flow under strobe lighting!
This exasperation of packaging speed calls for micrometric precision in the construction of moving parts, which must be meticulously crafted to obtain infinitesimal mating tolerances. Even if 5 continual axis machining is performed rarely in the Opem workshop, the 4 and 5 positioned axes have become a constant, especially in relation to large size workpieces.
Maintenance of precision can be guaranteed only when the blank part is positioned in the machine just once.
«Milling on several faces, angled chamfers, drillings and many operations on a single component are all part of the routine today and we need to perform all these processes on the same machine. Clamping is a single process; all operations are performed in sequence and the part is fully machined and finished. The absence of additional external operations on the part once it has been positioned on the worktable results in compliance with tolerances in each dimension that were hitherto extremely difficult to achieve and called for painstaking set-up procedures. Today we can be absolutely certain that precision requirements are met consistently».

Also time savings resulting from faster throughput times have been maximized thanks to the Matrix 1000.
«With respect to the past, when we had to unload parts and then reposition them, machining times have been significantly reduced. In addition, a powerful machine like the Matrix, with its impressive performance credentials, greatly assists us in making heavy duty components».
Another of the reasons that led to the choice of such a monolithic machine is the size of the worktable, which makes it possible to clamp both bulky side assemblies or even several parts in different areas of the worktable to be machined in succession and without interruption.

Parameters for high speed
Before choosing the Matrix 1000, the Emilia-based company management did their homework carefully: «We found a large number of high quality machines on the market, but we preferred to go with an Italian product made by a high-end builder. Price is not the critical factor for our company: the characteristics we are focused on are precision, ruggedness and, above all, the level of service received. In fact, working with the machine manufacturer's technical team a series of special tooling systems were developed in accordance with adequate parameters for this type of high speed machine. Our collaboration with Breton made it possible to refine chip removal technologies and strategies, identify the best tools and optimize the machining processes. All cycle times have been significantly reduced, both for roughing and surface finishing».
The selected tools are stored in a spacious magazine that ensures prolonged operation of the system without intervention. The magazine is installed outside the work area to keep the tools clean and ensure the maximum level of reliability through time. The cast-iron fork head is particularly effective, imparting both structural stiffness and absorbing machine vibration. The model installed in the Opem works is equipped with Direct Drive motors and a thermally stabilized spindle.
A versatile machining center
Matrix 1000's massive frame and high performance make it the ideal solution for a range of industries: aerospace, automotive, tooling and design. To meet all machining needs, Breton can configure the machine specifically in accordance with customers' needs; the standard version is equipped with a large working area, although it can be configured with two separate work areas for tandem machining. The machine affords optimal accessibility and visibility of the work area thanks to its large front doors and gantry structure with travelling beam.
One particularly interesting feature is the structural solution invented and patented by Breton: heavy-duty shoulders built using innovative Metalquartz technology, i.e. an arc-welded and stabilized steel sandwich structure with ribbing embedded in a quartz composite polymeric matrix. This exclusive technology assures the utmost structural rigidity and vibration damping, which guarantees a better surface finish and longer lifetime of the milling tools.
Matrix is not designed simply for machining steel parts: it can also work with composites and resins. The machine can be equipped with an efficient dust extraction system on the spindle nose and roof-top bellows that completely seal the work cell, segregating the machining zone from the surrounding environment.

For info and requests write to mail@breton.it.
We’ll get back to you promptly.
Well, that’s all for today, thanks for your attention.
Bye-bye
Sergio Prior

Thursday 22 January 2015

Manufacturing gears with the eyes of the designer

By Anna Bonanomi - Organi di Trasmissione
Gear production using 5-axis machine tools shows its full potential in the context of the increasingly small lots required, on the condition that the synergy achieved also includes a software environment and mechanical systems/hardware capable of optimal interpretation of the required specifications.
Manufacturing high quality gears with 5-axis machine tools calls for an essential and winning combination capable of balancing mechanical systems, software and process in order to meet designers' real needs. This is confirmed by Claudio Saurin, engineer and product development manager with Breton, a company based in Castello di Godego (Treviso - Italy) that has spent several years producing tailored machining centers featuring high technical specifications and evolved technology capable of delivering a highly competitive system in a market that is often faced with the need to produce increasingly small lots of parts. The reason lies in the fact that in this type of production (typical of medium/large size gears from 500mm to 3500mm) the tools required are frequently extremely expensive, hard to procure rapidly, etc.
Claudio Saurin continues «The ability for tooling machines capable of meeting the most stringent requirements in terms of accuracy and competitiveness expressed by gear designers and manufacturers calls for a high level of specialization. And it's essential to be able to offer the designer (especially the designer of bevel gear sets in the 400 to 1600mm range, which are perhaps still excessively reliant on tradition, ed.) a technically competent and convincing approach».
A conscious reflection, based on the experience that Claudio Saurin has accumulated during his work as a gear designer and that has been transformed into tangible innovation in the development of new solutions that touch on mechanical aspects and electronics, and that are especially focused on the process software. Just a few years ago an agreement was sealed between Breton and Kiss-Soft, a company with consolidated experience in the creation of specific software for gears and transmissions of all types, that has led to the implementation of programs, supplied on an exclusive basis (by Breton) and that allow the execution of machining processes that are impossible using conventional methods.

«Software – continues Claudio Saurin – that makes it possible, in bevel helical teeth for example, to machine the relief groove at the tooth root in the same way as it is created using hobbing cutters with protuberance on cylindrical teeth. Or to achieve refinements in the management of surface curvature in order to shift contact points by controlling the distortion of the surface in question rather than the settings on the machine. This involves making highly complex topological modifications».
At this point the transition to bring the surfaces generated by the afore-mentioned Kiss-soft software to the machine is managed by the Gear CAD and Gear CAM applications (developed by Breton using the Rhinoceros CAD engine and the RhinoNC CAM engine), which allow complete management of the process to create surfaces including chamfers, and of the associated machining operations.

Integrated process platform
«The technological synergy we have created – explains Claudio Saurin – allows the designer to develop the best material removal strategies and perform adequate simulations, allowing also the choice of the most suitable tool to create the tooth base until completing the workpiece after hardening. For example, to design a double helical gear the conventional approach is to design the left or right face and then make a specular design CAD, filleting and chamfering wherever necessary. In other words, our modus operandi is to fine tune the geometry as though we were the gear designer».
The greatest effort was therefore, on the one hand, that of creating an adequate design environment, and on the other hand to use machines that are able to optimize efficiency with high performance cutting processes.
«Not only – continues Claudio Saurin – but with the added value of a user-friendly and intuitive CAM system on board the machine. A process guided by a wizard that aids the operator in defining geometries and optimal tool paths. The decision is based on the fact that companies that manufacture exclusively gears and not the associated housings are generally unlikely to possess this kind of software».
In other words, the proposed solution is based on an integrated platform that includes a gear calculation code, a CAD application for generation of surfaces and a CAM application for the machining stage.

5 axes of quality for gears of various types
It is precisely to meet specific gear machining requirements that Breton has developed specific machining cycles to apply to its 5-axis machines, notably the Ultrix series model 1000 RT HD vertical machining center, which is particularly indicated for high speed machining of gears of diameters up to 1000mm.
«This is a high-speed machine featuring a high degree of automation – explains Claudio Saurin – designed and developed for milling, turning and grinding of workpieces of up to 1,200mm in diameter».
Equipped, in this version, with a powerful 75kW spindle with 300Nm of torque at 14,000 rpm and software for the production of helical bevel gears, this machining center can machine steel, aluminum, superalloys and composites. The machine features a monobloc structurewith gantry type travelling beam, with a 5-axis movement achieved by combining 3 linear axes with a rotary-tilting table. 
Gears can also be machined using various Breton machine models in the Maxima and Titan series (with large size gantry solutions and turning diameter). Systems that support an integrated process of turning, milling and hobbing pre- and post-heat treatment of medium and large size gears (up to 2,500mm for single piece parts).

«The know-how and experience acquired  – adds Claudio Saurin in conclusion – allow us to offer the designer a comprehensive set of tools construed in the broadest sense, including both software and process components. This makes it possible to use conventional 5-axis NC machines to design and produce a very large range of mechanical components rapidly and with superb quality results capable of guaranteeing a high level of competitiveness».

In other words, a new way of approaching the culture of gear manufacture. Not merely spur tooth and helical tooth gears, but also double helical cylindrical gears, spur tooth and spiral tooth bevel gear sets in accordance with the most common geometries, and also face gears for drive transmission between right-angle or non-parallel shafts.
To learn more, follow the considerations of Alessandro Verduci on market trends and future prospects:

For info and request about Breton machining centres and gear production using 5-axis machine tools write to mail@breton.it.
We’ll get back to you promptly.
Thanks again to Organi di Trasmissione.
Well, that’s all for today, thanks for your attention.
Bye-bye
Sergio Prior