Page 43 - 2020cnc8-9

built a prototype that featured significant performance improvements. The company asked Udelhoven to quickly ramp up production of the part so it could be incorporated into a new product. The part is prismatic, with complex features on all six sides that must be held to close tolerances. Producing the part on the VTC300 would have required setting up the part six times to sequentially expose each side for machining. It would have taken about seven hours of setup and machining, plus one hour of deburring, to produce just a single part.
Udelhoven decided to invest in a Mazak Integrex i200s 7-axis multi-tasking machine, which is capable of producing the part in a single setup. It does this by clamping the part in the spindle, rotating it to expose different sides to the milling head, then transferring the part to the sub-spindle so the side that was originally clamped could be machined. Udelhoven purchased the machine from Smith Machinery Co., which also provided training and other assistance in getting the new machine up and running. Then Udelhoven was presented with the challenge of programming the new machine.
“With ESPRIT, I was immediately able to access all seven machine axes and produce G-code that worked the first time,” Udelhoven said. “Our company does not sell any software, but we told Graydon that in our experience of selling many multi-tasking machines, the only software we have seen that works right out of the box is ESPRIT,” said Klaus Lassig, sales engineer for Smith Machinery.
Graydon Udelhoven, founder of Forbidn Manufacturing, stands next to his Mazak VTC300 vertical machining center.
CNC WEST August/september 2020
www.CNC-West.com 41