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The system also assures low heat transfer and high accuracy of the machine. Because of the low masses to be moved, accelerations of up to 1 G can be obtained. “The rigidity of the machine due to this design is outstanding,” McMillan said. High working travel of up to 50 m/min guarantees low nonproductive times and thus further reduction of cycle times. The vertical machine bed allows a free chip fall and is pro- vided with completely enclosed guards with height-adjustable operating panel. From the viewpoint of training, operating and setup, this
machine is immeasurably better, McMillan said. There are several conditions which must be met before the machine al- lows a cycle to begin. Before, on other machines, this meant a machine would sit and the operator would have to figure out why. Now, the Index machine not only informs the opera- tor what is wrong, it offers to fix the problem(s). Beyond that, navigation and operation of the control are much simpler and straightforward.
TFT has been able to eliminate all of its hex stock, because it can be milled so quickly with the Index machines. “We used to buy different size materials for all our parts, now it is down to three,” McMillan said. “The amount of chips coming off the smaller sizes is so minimal, the cost of the chips is more than made up for by the dramatically reduced cycle times on each part. We group the parts by the stock size. And the Index MBL bar feeder is like nothing else in the industry. We can run full 12' [3.7-m] bars up to 2.5" [63.5 mm] at the full 4000 rpm with practically zero vibration.”
A great example of how the Index C machine saved time and material is on a part for an automatic nozzle for which TFT had been buying extruded stock.
“Our B580 nozzle part had been made for about 38 years from a soft extrusion with fins which we had to inventory. One day one of our operators, after seeing what the Index could do, suggested making the part out of bar stock, fins and all. It sounded like a crazy idea, but it was crazy like a fox. We now
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