CNC West Feb March 2019

26 www.CNC-West.com CNC WEST February/March 2019 hype, and if it delivered on the promises, I knew I would be a very happy customer. Chevalier was confident in their machine and they really stepped up by increasing the length of the warranty. It doesn’t cost them anything if the machine doesn’t have any issues, but it was a great piece of mind for me the consumer. That’s when I pulled the trigger. A little over one year in and we’ve had no is- sues with it. Beautiful parts come off it on a daily basis and the post sale support has been fantastic.” As a demo model the Chevalier QP5X-400 came ful- ly loaded with a high speed/high torque spindle, a laser measuring system, upgraded Fanuc controls, coolant through the spindle and much more. “We typically don’t buy a machine with all of the bells and whistles,” explains Marcelo. “Having all these features has been great. Most of the extras are geared towards speed and accuracy while machining harder materials. The spindle runs at 10,000 rpm and has crazy kinds of torque behind it. It has a torque meter that measures the load in real time, and it doesn’t even move when I’m getting after it on a titanium part. We noticed right away how good the finish is off the Chevalier. That has a lot to do with the strength of your spindle. A weaker spindle will give you vibrations and a much worst finish. Especially in harder metals.” The C axis can cut and rotate simultaneously, allowing for flawless round surfaces. “Round parts off the Cheva- lier are fantastic,” jokes Marcelo. “More than once Jeff has had to confirm we ran it on the mill and not a lathe. It is that good.” Surprisingly one of the most noted attributes outside of speed and accuracy is the coolant skimmer and recovery system. It filters out all the Waylube and keeps the coolant fresh. The machine has been running non- stop for a year and all BLM has done is top off the coolant. “The coolant system is something we probably wouldn’t have ordered if we built the machine from scratch,” tells Marcelo. “We don’t have it on any of our other machining centers, but really like having it now on the Chevalier.” As the head programmer Marcelo loves having the higher end Fanuc control with 525 megs of memory. Their other 5 axis machine only has 128 and they wish it had more. “All our programs on the 5 axis are large and complex,” de- scribes Marcelo. “They take up a lot of memory. With only 128 megs we can’t load a full program into the control, but with 525 we can. It isn’t a huge issue by any means, but again just a nice bonus that comes with a higher end control.” 1 - The C axis on the Chevalier can cut and rotate the spindle at the same time for true 5 axis performance. 2 - Bob Lewis Machine’s programmers use FeatureCam simulation on every machine. 3 - This part went from 3 setups down to only two, but it has a callout of .001 true position and is very tough to hold. 1. 2. 3.