Workholding
original fixture, eliminating the need to resituate the part in new fixtures for measuring or secondary machining. “They can quickly get their location, and then they are good to go,” Kieta said.
The FixturePro system is US designed and made to metric dimensions. Kieta said the system is an international product and the wide acceptance of metric in manufacturing today made using a metric standard the logical choice.
The CL5 System
Colin Frost, Chief Business Development Officer, said Carr Lane (St. Louis, MO) had been researching available quick-change options for five-axis machines, given the rapid growth of the advanced machines. “They all required adaptors or extra pieces people had to bolt on to get these items to work together,” he said. “That doesn’t really make a lot of sense.”
No Hydraulics Here: Electromechanical Gripping and Clamping T
o conserve energy and reduce costs, more shops and machine tool builders are shying away from hydraulics and pneumatics and instead opting for gripping and clamping systems powered
by electricity.
While this new technology may not spell the complete extinction of hydraulics and pneumatics, electromechanical workholding is the wave of the future when it comes to efficient, precise, compact and low-mainte- nance solutions.
Röhm GmbH, a manufacturer of clamping and gripping products, re- cently released its e-QUIPMENT line of all-electric clamping and gripping systems. The line incorporates electrically powered steadyrests, clamping heads, grippers, cylinder systems (with and without through holes), clamp release units and tool locking systems.
Among the e-QUIPMENT range of tools, the latest innovation is the EVS 50 electrical clamping system that activates power chucks on turn- ing and grinding machines, without any hydraulics or pneumatics, said Matthew Mayer, CEO of Röhm Products of America. The EVS combines the strengths of mechanics with the precision control of electronics and operates on a standard external servomotor with 1.0 kW of power, making it compatible with several industry standard CNC machine controls. Also new to the e-QUIPMENT line is a servomotor-driven electri- cal steadyrest for turning and grinding machines. With NC-controlled functionality, the steadyrest rigidly clamps and supports long, shaft-type workpieces with ODs measuring between 15 and 170 mm. Machine tools equipped with electric clamping or gripping systems, such as those from Röhm, consume less energy overall. Unlike hydraulic clamping cylinders that require constant power to maintain necessary op- erating pressure, electrical clamps, for instance, use energy only when in actual use—typically to run the short duration of the clamp and release cycle or when clamping force modifications are needed. As a result, shops could, in one year and based on three shifts of operation, potentially save up to 13,000 kWh for one machine tool. The amount of energy saved is equivalent to the power consumption of four small-family households. In addition to energy savings, electromechanical clamping systems deliver increased part accuracy through faster and more precisely
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controlled clamping. Because they are easily regulated via machine tool controls, the systems allow shops to optimize holding force and lift while a workpiece is being processed.
Because clamping force can be adjusted during actual workpiece rotation, shops can, for example, reduce the tensile force and pressure of the electronic clamp for finish-turning operations to eliminate the risk of workpiece deformation. This capability to precisely regulate clamping force on-the-fly makes it possible to process extremely delicate parts with maximum accuracy.
When electrical components replace those larger ones associated with hydraulics and pneumatics, the result is a more compact, space- saving clamping and gripping system that requires minimal mainte- nance. Shops eliminate the need to clean, replace or dispose of hydraulic fluids and avoid any risk of environmental contamination from system leakage. The absence of hydraulics also makes for a clean, oil-free and quieter working environment.
As the development of electromechanical systems continues to surge, machine tools of the very near future will consume less energy, require minimal maintenance and be more environmentally friendly. Also, shops will increasingly come to realize that the most efficient machine tools will be those that only use energy when actually performing a movement.
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