debuted at IMTS, eight were designed and manufactured at the company’s Florence (KY) HQ and plant. One of those Kentucky-built machines was the QUICK TURN NEXUS 450-II MY Multi-Tasking Machine featuring Mazak’s LVM (long verti- cal milling) option.
New Portable Gage With its new lower-cost 3DGage portable CMM, Verisurf Software (Anaheim, CA) is hoping to help college instructors teach model-based inspection techniques to CNC program- ming students. The 3DGage is priced at about half the cost of Verisurf’s original Master3DGage portable arm to make it more affordable to university and college programs, according to Dave Olson, Verisurf director of marketing.
A Real ‘Stitch in Time’ Want to cut weeks—not days, weeks—from the time it takes to make heat-treated components? That’s the possibil- ity Greg Hyatt, VP Engineering and, chief technical officer at DMG / Mori Seiki (Hoffman Estates, IL), held out at the company’s soiree during IMTS.
Hyatt said DMG / Mori Seiki is developing a process it calls “grind hardening” that heat-treats a workpiece using special grinding wheels instead of sending it out for heat treatment. No more waiting for parts to be shipped to a heat-treating facility, treated and shipped back. It could all be done on-site in a traditional machine tool, saving time, money and fuel for transportation. You can be sure this is a development we’ll be keeping our
eyes on.
Aerospace, Powergen, Precision Apps Targeted Mitsui Seiki (Franklin Lakes, NJ) introduced its HU100A- 5XL horizontal machining center for heavy-duty machining applications for aerospace, powergen, and other precision industrial applications. The HU100A-5XL line is based on standard modular components that can be arranged to meet specific customer requirements. Heavy-duty milling with a 6000-rpm spindle or high-speed machining with a 12,000- rpm spindle can be chosen for workpieces weighing up to 11,000 lb (5000 kg). Equipped with the latest Fanuc 30iM control, the HU100A-5XL features automatic workpiece fixture measuring and compensation, noncontact laser tool setting, and 3-D tool compensation.
Verisurf’s 3DGage targets STEM and CNC programs to teach students model-based inspection.
The smaller 3DGage is geared toward students enrolled in STEM or CNC courses and is powered by the latest Verisurf X software for teaching students reverse engineering and the lat- est model-based measurement techniques. “You’re teaching them how to probe and inspect,” Olson added. “Professors have been teaching model-based machining for years. Why are they not teaching model-based inspection? We’re also developing an online training program that will be starting late this year.”
Assembled from a precision-machined aluminum base and joints with carbon-fiber tubing to minimize temperature effects, the standard 3DGage has a 1.27-m hemispherical working diameter with positional accuracy of ±0.23 mm.
Job-Shop Control
Aiming for the job-shop market, CNC developer Siemens Industry Inc., Motion Control Business (Elk Grove Village, IL) showed its new Sinumerik 808D control for entry-level milling and turning machines. With a more affordable price, the new control will target three-axis machine tools, particularly in the Asian market.
Designed for the highly competitive, high-volume machine tool market, the 808D features up to three-axis plus spindle control capability in milling or turning applications, and is of- fered as a package with Siemens Sinamics drives and Simot- ics motor solutions. At IMTS, Siemens demonstrated the new CNC on a knee mill. Available for OEM and retrofit installations, the control is said to be easy to use, featuring the Sinumerik Operate