Seco Tools has introduced a cutting tool line designed for machining medical knee implants. The Jabro range of solid carbide cutters for high-speed medical machining and other aggressive milling strategies can shorten cycle times on knee implants by as much Machining Carbide Insertsas 50 percent, according to the company.
The tools’ continuous grades and coatings are said to reduce or eliminate the need for polishing or fine finishing operations. These features also promote process stability and long tool life, according to the company.&Cutting Carbide Inserts nbsp;
The product line includes nine advanced geometries and 39 tools, most of which are part of the Jabro Tornado high-speed cutting family. Each geometry is designed for particular applications in the machining of tibial tray and femoral knee implant components. Because these tools are designed to machine cobalt-chrome (CoCr) and 3D-printed Ti6Al4V ISO-S12 parts, they can also improve machine performance for other medical implant components, including hip replacements and bone plates, according to the company.
Manufactured by Kaiser Tool Company, Thinbit’s Groove ‘N Turn inserts are designed to both groove and turn using narrow insert widths. They are useful for manufacturing medical components such as stents, bone screws, implants and surgical gun drilling insertsgun drilling inserts tools. Geometries and grade can be tailored for titanium, plastics and BTA deep hole drilling inserts stainless steel.
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The company’s offset insert design allows grooving or turning up to a shoulder. Insert geometries are available for grooving, threading, face grooving, parting and special configurations. The inserts are available in groove width sizes ranging from 0.004" to 0.150" in 0.001" increments with either sharp corners or 0.007" radius. The come in two sub-micron grain carbide grades: DM-2 for steel and interrupted cutting and DM-5 for aluminum and other non-ferrous alloys. High speed steel as well as TiN, TiCN, TiAlN and diamond coatings also are available.
The Carbide Inserts Website: https://www.estoolcarbide.com/product/100-original-material-cutting-tools-t-slot-milling-cutter-square-carbide-inserts-mpht060304/
ITI Tooling Co. offers a line of live-tool spindles to complement the high-speed, high-torque tool turrets on DMG MORI’s NL, NT, NZ and BTA deep hole drilling inserts DuraTurn machines. These turrets use a deep hole drilling inserts high-performance tool drive and transmission driven by an integral direct-drive motor. The design of the ITI/Sauter live-tool spindle unit enhances these turret attributes with features such as precision-aligned surfaces for rapid setups and change-overs, precision bevel gear drives to reduce heat, noise and vibration, and pre-stressed spindle bearings for high-speed and high-torque cutting operations.
Many of these tool spindles offer a universal drive shaft for right- and left-hand use. In addition, they are designed with internal coolant ranging to 1,100 psi to help keep tools cool and rapidly clear chips from the work zone.
Machine tools designed to combine milling, turning and other metalworking processes have remarkable potential for efficiency and productivity. Completing parts in one pass across a multitasking machine streamlines production by eliminating multiple setups, avoiding errors when parts are refixtured and performing several operations simultaneously. Multitasking machines also are well-suited for running unattended or having one operator oversee multiple units.
By their nature, multitasking machines tend to be complex and sometimes difficult to understand, however. They follow a variety of configurations—mills with turning, lathes with milling, twin-spindle machining centers and three-turret lathes are a few examples. Additional axis motions such as a rotating milling head (B axis) and turrets on a cross-slide (Y axis) compound this complexity.
And multitasking machines impose distinct challenges to cutting tool usage and management. For example, multitasking machines may have a limited number of stations for cutting tools on the tool turret or automatic toolchanger. Certain cutting tools may be called upon for both milling and turning operations. A worn or broken tool that interrupts a multitasking machine may have the same effect on productivity as unplanned downtime on two or more single-purpose machines.
Systems designed to monitor a tool’s condition, adjust automatically for wear and capture information about the tool’s performance can be especially valuable on multitasking machines. One of the biggest challenges to tool monitoring on a multitasking machine is coping with simultaneous cutting operations. One system designed specifically to meet this challenge is TMAC-MP from Caron Engineering (Wells, Maine) which stands for Tool Monitoring Adaptive Control for Multi-Process machines.
This system, which includes sensors installed on the machine tool and software installed on the CNC unit, monitors tool performance to detect wear or breakage, automatically adjusts feed rates to compensate for wear (adaptive control), and captures data about tool life. Several tools cutting at the same time can be monitored and controlled equally well, with all data recorded and displayed in a centralized interface. Data from a TMAC-MP system on an individual machine can be transmitted to a shop-wide machine monitoring system, enabling managers to incorporate critical tool data into calculations of overall equipment efficiency.
A Multi-Processing Extension
TMAC-MP is an extension of Caron Engineering’s pioneering TMAC tool monitoring system. It is based on the principle that a machine tool has to work harder to maintain a set feed rate as the edges of a cutting tool grow dull. In other words, spindle horsepower gradually increases as wear occurs. By sensing spindle horsepower output, the system can detect if a cutting tool is worn or broken.
More importantly, the system can be set to react to changes in the horsepower readings. If the power monitor detects evidence of excessive wear, it can signal the machine control to issue an alarm, initiate a tool change to retrieve a fresh spare tool or stop the machining process altogether.
The adaptive control option enables the control to automatically adjust the feed rate to maintain a constant horsepower rating as the tool undergoes normal wear patterns. As a result, the cutting tool performs at its optimum power level, thus extending its life, reducing cycle time, and avoiding stress on the spindle bearings and Carbide Turning Inserts other machine components. Under this protocol, feed-rate adjustments are made constantly in small increments (typically 1 percent of the programmed feed rate) for a smooth transition that further protects the tool and workpiece surface.
For both monitoring and automatic adjustment, the system’s software can “learn” the normal horsepower draw for a given tool and operation while the tool is cutting. Using this baseline, the user can set limits and establish the preferred response.
The multi-processing enhancement of the system is designed to perform these functions even when multiple tools are cutting at the same time. Essentially, the software was reformatted to be multitasking in its own right. For example, this development enables the system to monitor and control two turning tools cutting deep hole drilling inserts simultaneously in an upper and lower turret while a milling tool is doing end work on a part in the subspindle.
Originally developed for a Tsugami Swiss-type lathe and introduced at IMTS 2012, TMAC-MP also includes significant hardware innovations. Most important is the ability to monitor very small tools such 0.004-inch- (0.1-mm-) diameter drills. To this end, Caron Engineering had to develop new strain sensors that can be fully embedded in static toolholders sized for tools this small. The company also developed three-axis and single-axis accelerometers for measuring vibration. Mounted on the spindle or tooling slide, these sensors record vibration in spindle bearings, servodrives and other machine components that can adversely affect cutting conditions.
The system’s user interface was also changed so that machine and cutting tool data can be viewed in a bar graph that shows tool condition and remaining tool life for all tools being monitored. This information can be archived in any structured query language (SQL) database. The software can also be set up to send alarms by email or transmit them as text messages.
The Larger Connection
As valuable as tool monitoring and adaptive control may be for the individual multitasking machine, Rob Caron, president and founder of Caron Engineering, believes that the ability to port data across a network is the most substantial pay off awaiting shops and plants that implement the TMAC-MP system.
“Making tool data available to third-party software applications such as shopfloor machine monitoring opens doors to many possibilities such as plant-wide, data-driven decision-making and integrated automation,” Mr. Caron says. As a first step in this direction, his company is partnering with Memex Automation (Burlington, Ontario).
Memex’s manufacturing execution system, Manufacturing Execution Real-time Lean Information Network (MERLIN) supplies OEE metrics to support performance, productivity and profitability initiatives. The system tracks manufacturing operations bi-directionally from the ERP work order to each machine’s operations. MERLIN connects to all machines on the shop floor using various protocols, MTConnect adapters and/or network conductivity devices.
According to Mr. Caron, TMAC-MP users can use MERLIN’s interface and connectivity to deliver in-machine metrics from the shop floor to the operations and corporate executives, even to mobile devices or other web-enabled systems.
This connection also has the benefit of validating the productivity and efficiency gains delivered by multitasking machine tools, as well as making those machining resources more secure by detecting and preventing cutting-tool-based constraints to their full potential. “Multitasking machines and tool monitoring are more than complementary technologies. They are mutually empowering,” Mr. Caron concludes.
Missler Software introduces version 7.8 of its TopSolid'Cam CAM software, which features a range of updates and optional integration capabilities. The addition of the Adveon platform provides functions for fast feed milling inserts managing cutting parts, collisions and driven points with Internet access to supplier tool libraries. The libraries enable building of tool databases with automatic access to 3D CAD models for precise simulation and visualization. Manual entry is minimized, ensuring data consistency and quality. According to Missler, the ability to reach relevant tool geometry and cutting condition information within TopSolid’Cam increases CAD/CAM productivity for manufacturing engineers and NC shops.
VoluMill Carbide Turning Inserts toolpath calculation can be optionally integrated into TopSolid’Cam 7.8 to provide effective toolpath algorithms. VoluMill's smooth, flowing motion and elimination of sharp directional changes and tool load variance is said to reduce cycle times and machine tool stress as well as extend tool life for lower costs. G-code simulation software NCSimul Machine can also be integrated as an option and used directly within TopSolid’Cam. The combination is said to provide security and insurance throughout the machining process and programming stages, particularly for long cycles and final toolpath tuning.
The Carbide Inserts Website: https://www.estoolcarbide.com/product/tungsten-carbide-inserts-turning-inserts-on-lathes-tnmx110616-tnmx150916-using-for-peeling/
