TIMTOS 2013 Spotlights Machine Tool Trends at Excellence Awards

ICT, ergonomic, space-saving and green products rank high on the winners' list

Seventeen winners emerged from a slate of 62 competitors at the second annual Taiwan Machine Tools Industry Award 2013 for Excellence in Research and Innovation contest held during the Taipei International Machine Tool Show (TIMTOS) 2013 in early March.

The number of award contenders this year doubled over that of the previous contest, held in 2011. Award categories this year included Machining Center, CNC Lathe, Other CNC Machine Tools, and Components for Machine Tools, the latter a new addition this year.

According to the non-profit Taiwan Machine Tool Foundation (TMTF), which selected the award winners, this year the contesting products emphasized several features, including the application of information-communication technology (ICT), lesser occupation space, optimal operator approaching, ergonomic operation interface, improved exterior design, eco-friendliness, and application of hydrostatic bearing and slide guideways.

Grand Champion Award Winner: Fair Friend Enterprise Co., Ltd.

Category: Machining Center

Product: U-600A 5-axis is 370mm Vertical Machining Center
This machine is designed for medical-equipment, template-processing and template-parts processing, aircraft-building, and aircraft-parts processing applications.

It features an intelligent chattering restraint design with real-time chatter lobe display that helps machine operators to identify when cutting is chattering and thereby adjust cutter settings for smooth production.

This machine has a patented AC-axis-type 5-axis mechanism that differs from the conventional BC type. AC type structure has a maximum machining scale that is larger than that of conventional axis traversing. The design also enables operators to work close to the machining table so they can clearly observe the milling process.

The machine also has a patented “open operating region” design that eliminates the middle pillar between the two sliding doors that keep machine operators from the machining table. The design offers more table space for operators to watch processing and facilitates operation of the controllers on both sides of the doors. The open-operating region also makes it easier to load huge workpieces. The machine also has a safety board to protect operators.

This model also integrates the machine bed and column into one piece to boost structural rigidity and machining accuracy: a design improvement that is patent-pending.

The five-axis machine separates the three axes from the two rotary axes and keeps workpiece above the two rotary axes. This prevents the machine's radian error in the five axes and the moving error in the three axes from affecting each other, greatly boosting machining accuracy.

The machine improves durability and reliability by separating the feeding area from the machining area of the three axes. The former are fixed in a high position and the latter in a low position of the machine to keep unwanted materials, including particles, chips and cutting fluid, from dropping onto the feeding system.

The three axes have roller linear guides with high rigidity and good vibration absorption, boosting their rigidity by 50-100% compared to axes with ball rails. The guides reduce noise of high-speed feeding and perform excellently on heavy loading jobs. In addition, when the axes move at low speed for heavy cutting, the guide system slides differentially in accordance with the workpiece load in order to increase frictional resistance and damping.

Developed for aircraft building, mold processing and vehicle-components processing, this five-axis machining center reaches full power output when turning at 1,500 rpm-7.5Kw: the optimal power output point for area and deep milling on big workpiece. In terms of accuracy, the main spindle has a maximum vertical displacement of less than 0.024mm when moving in X axis within 460mm of traversing, along the central line perpendicular to working table, and a rotating error of less than 0.004mm.

Award of Eminence Winner: Ching Hung Machinery & Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.

Category: Machining Center

Product: HM5042L 5-axis Control Linear Motor Drive High-speed Milling Center
This machine is outfitted with the company's PC-based synchronized CNC 5-axis controller. The company developed all of the controller hardware, as well as the software, which can be flexibly adjusted for customized production.

The company's patented liner motor prevents wear and tear as well as backlash on screw ball bearings when driving the bearings, thereby ensuring machining precision and bearing durability.

X, Y, and Z axes are driven by linear motors, measured by high-resolution index scales and managed by a fully-closed loop servo controller, eliminating wear and achieving high positioning precision and rapid reaction.

The machine's optimized double-column gantry structure design ensures high rigidity and low thermal deformation. Finite element method (FEM) analysis on mechanical rigidity proves this machine can operate at optimal stability even when the built-in main spindle is turning at extremely high speeds.

The company's patented “circular oil shroud” protects the machine's axis driving system by keeping graphite particles from falling into linear guideways when the machine is processing graphite-based workpieces.

The machine also performs well in high ambient temperatures thanks to the thermal-confinement design of its die-cast body and inner die-cast components. The design thermally shields the body and water cooling circulator for inner parts, restricting temperature fluctuations in the machine to within plus or minus 0.5 C of the temperature set by a controller. The design reduces thermal deformation to ensure machining reliability.

Award of Eminence Winner: Tongtai Machine & Tool Co., Ltd.

Category: Machining Center

Product: GT630-5AX Gantry-type 5-axis Machining Center
This machine is developed for aircraft and mold industries. The gantry-type design ensures moving accuracy of this machine's three linear axes regardless of workpiece weight.

The machine's rail guide shifts the center of gravity of main spindle back to prevent spindle forward inclination, which can reduce processing accuracy.

Transmission components for Y axis are integrated into a crossbeam to save space and prevent interference between the tool magazine and the transmission components.

The Y axis is driven by a single ball screw set at the machine's center of gravity to ensure accuracy while minimizing vibration caused by spindle movement.

Analytic FEM simulations are used to locate the optimum table structure design for the five axes. The design also improves the convenience of assembly and maintenance.

Special jigs and fixtures are used in the machine to prevent deformation of die-cast workpieces and thereby improve the precision of the finished products.

Accelerometers, thermometers, and Q-sensors are integrated into main spindle system of the machine. The accelerometer monitors spindle vibration and adjusts the spindle work load according to the vibration data to protect the cutters. The thermometer measures temperature change in the main spindle and provides data used for thermal compensation of spindle shaft elongation. The Q-sensor detects when a cutter on the spindle reaches the workpiece to measure the workpiece, cutter length, cutter radius, and cutter damage, as well as identify errors in the rotation centers of the five axes.

Award of Eminence Winner: Awea Mechantronic Co., Ltd.

Category: Machining Center

Product: MB1512+APC High-precision Horizontal Boring/Milling Machine
This machine's rotary table is equipped with a high-precision hydrostatic bearing, which features high rigidity, good impact resistance, low abrasion wear, high longevity, and no need for maintenance under normal operations. A powerful hydraulic braking system improves the indexing positioning accuracy of the B axis. A right angle indexing lock device further stabilizes the 90-degree indexing of the B axis.

This machine can be used for a variety of heavy and precision cutting duties thanks to its one-piece bed and four compound guideways, which are integrated with a high rigidity box way on the X and Y axes. The feeding systems of the three axes are highly accurate thanks to their full travel support and high precision linear encoders. The spindle inner taper, built to BBT50 tool standards, provides a firmer grip on the cutter to ensure machining precision.

A specially designed chip conveying system allows workpiece chips to naturally fall into a screw-type conveyor on the machine bed. The conveyor rapidly sends the chips to a water tank and a waste container mounted on one side of this machine so that heat and chips will not accumulate and reduce machining accuracy. Two sets of supporting chip conveyors, which are installed between the contact surface of the saddle and bed, help quickly send the chips at the top of the bed to the chip conveyor, thereby speeding up chip cleaning work.

The machine's auto pallet changer (APC) is outfitted with a hydraulic cylinder coupled with linear guideway, enhancing the stability of heavy-duty cutting tasks. The changer is externally located to facilitate maintenance.

The rigid, closed main spindle, combined with main transmission system and feeding mechanism, provides powerful heavy-duty cutting. The system has a 110mm-diameter high precision spindle, W axis with a maximum traverse range of 500mm, and a three-step gearbox with a maximum turning speed of 3,200 rpm and maximum torque output of 1,800 N-m at 137 rpm.

Grand Champion Award Winner: Far East Machinery Co., Ltd.

Category: CNC Lathe

Product: NVL-12M CNC Vertical Lathe
This is a lathing-milling hybrid machine developed for massive workpieces that have complicated design or require multiple, precision processes. It shortens processing time without sacrificing precision and quality. In addition, it saves cost on jigs and is suitable for low-quantity workpieces in diversified specifications.

This machine comes with a patented worktable drive design, which features a single PLC (programmable logic control) motor for driving the backlash control. The driving system provides accurate indexing and continuous profile machining by generating adequate backlashes as cushions for high-speed gears driving the lathe and zero backlash for low-speed gears driving milling.

The machine has a proprietary chip-removing device. The device works independently, unlike conventional types that work synchronously with the worktable. Independent operation allows the unit to set removal speed and rotary direction, ensuring high safety and zero chip pile-up.

This machine's saddle has excellent rigidity and cutting damping effect, which together considerably improve machining accuracy and cutter lifespan with the help of an artificial granite cast, fully enclosed hydraulic ram, and hydrostatic bearing.

The machine's patent-pending automatic ram tool exchanger can exchange inner and outer tools, including turning, milling, drilling, tapping, and grinding cutters, as well as right-angle milling heads.

Both ram and right-angle milling heads provide external coolant to cool down cutters in conjunction with internal coolant in the main spindle. The coolant supply system, which is also patent-pending, can direct the fluids to tool tips depending on different inner and outer diameter tools.

Another patent-pending design on this machine is a round hydrostatic oil sealing on the ram. This design, tapping off-the-shelf low-friction oil seals and end-to-end processing, fixes the oil leakage at 45-degree angles and poor dust-proof seen in conventional system. The design also facilitates assembly and maintenance.

The machine's machining accuracy is even protected during power failure or malfunctioning by a patented crossbeam clamping mechanism with a self-lock design to keep the crossbeam from deviating.

Award of Eminence Winner: Goodway Machine Corp.

Category: CNC Lathe

Product: GV-780M Intelligent Vertical Turning Center
This user-friendly machine is an ideal choice for a wide range of industries, including general processing, automation, manufacturing, vehicle-manufacturing, and military-equipment industries.

Intelligent design elements on the machine include a Workpiece Balancing Analyzer (WBA): a sensor installed inside this machine to detect vibration caused by the centrifugal force from workpiece in high-speed rotation. The balancing function reduces vibration by up to 88%.

This unit is mostly used for work on asymmetrical parts and workpieces that need to be balanced after machining.

For workpieces, unbalanced position and weight can be detected online and fixed during machining by a live tooling turret. On asymmetrical parts, this unit is able to detect unbalanced positioning and weight and provide information to help operators determine the appropriate tooling.

Most conventional CNC turning machines use offline balancing analyzing method, which means machine operators have to stop the machines in order to move workpieces to a stand-alone balancing analyzer after they are finished. The workpieces then need to be reloaded to the turning machines for balancing, adding to the cost and time of processing, as well as the risk of inaccuracies.

The WBA interface can be customized and is easy to operate. For instance, a standard disk-shape workpiece takes only two minutes to set up for machining with the analyzer. After setup, the whole processing—from turning and detecting to milling—takes only three to four minutes per cycle: about half the time required by conventional machines.

Each axis feeding system is driven by Fanucαi servo motor and components to optimize machining performance and accuracy. The X and Z axes use highly rigid roller linear guideways to ensure rigidity, fast movement, and low abrasion for heavy-duty cutting work.

An extra wide slanted surface for chip disposal allows easy chip removal, preventing heat from affecting machining accuracy.

Using FEM, optimal reinforced ribbings are directly cast into GV-780M's one-piece structure integrating bed and column, thereby strengthening mechanical rigidity by 30% compared to conventional machines. Cast parts are made with the Meehanite process.

Award of Eminence Winner: Leadwell CNC Machines MFG., Corp

Category: CNC Lathe

Product: WTC-22, CNC Turning Center for Wheel Rims
This CNC turning center uses a column-type saddle design instead of the slant design type employed by most manufacturers. The column-saddle design, a world first for machines of this type, prevents dust from falling into the Z axis and damaging the transmission system: a frequent problem with slant design models that use a telescopic cover to keep dust off.

The machine is structurally simple yet rigid, energy-efficient, and much easier to maintain than competing machines. The machine is also ergonomically designed with the chuck center only 1,150mm from the floor, the opening width of its two doors 1,000mm, the distance between the operator and workpiece is 370mm, and the control panel is 1,650mm above floor.

The machine has a warranty of two years or 10,000 hours of normal operation. Its mechanical base has only positive torsional strain and mostly goes in opposite direction when the machine is cutting, reducing deformation to just 0.00359mm.

The WTC-22 can process rims with diameters up to 27 inches, or 688mm, yet it has a footprint of just 3m x 3.5m: a third less than the space occupied by competing machines. The smaller size also reduces the machine's shipment cost.

Award of Eminence Winner: Ecoca Industrial Co., Ltd.

Category: CNC Lathe

Product: MT-310i, ECO CNC Lathes with Heavy Cutting and Vibration Monitoring
This machine was developed for workpieces requiring multiple-face lathing and milling. It features a number of high-tech elements, including a smartphone look, touch-screen control panel and cloud-hosted apps. The lathe is also easy to operate thanks to the ergonomically designed voice and graphic interface for the control panel.

A transparent acrylic top cover admits more light into the machining area to improve visibility during processing.

This machine has six slide ways (four box ways and two linear ways) across the base as saddle and table support, improving rigidity and machining accuracy. Two axes are located at the upper end of the machine and three axes at lower end to ensure balance.

A power management system is integrated into the machine to save energy. A thermal compensation design prevents the machining from heating up, thereby further ensuring the accuracy.

The machine is scalable with peripherals and compatible with a multitude of control systems. Users can also access cloud apps offered by the company to extend machine functionality.

Supreme Excellence Award Winner: Wele Mechatronic Co., Ltd.

Category: CNC Machine Tools

Product: MT-16 Bridge-type Multi-milling-turning Machining Center.
This machine has a patent-pending, high load capacity, high accuracy, high rigidity and low abrasion rotary table with high-end hydro-static bearing. The rotary table monitors rotary table height to improve durability and machining accuracy.

The machine also has a backlash elimination system that uses the force generated by the twin spindle motors driving the rotary table to eliminate backlash in the table's transmission gear and enhance the indexing accuracy of the table. The rotary table doubles as a turning bearing and rotary indexing table.

The attachment head of the machine is integrated with a patented clamping mechanism to secure horizontal cutters for milling, boring, drilling and tapping work. The attachment head can clamp turning cutters for outer-diameter, inner-diameter and end-side lathing. The attachment head has a hydraulic design that enables fully automatic cutter changing.

The MT-16 is outfitted with Wele's fully-automatic multi-head storage system for vertical cover, horizontal attachment head and lath attachment head. The machine also comes with a specially developed tool magazine that can hold 32-120 milling, boring, drilling and turning tools. A unique automatic tool changing (ATC) arm provides fully automatic exchanging of all cutters on this machine.

The MT-16 has an optimized structure design that stresses high rigidity, lightweight and competitive cost. The design was developed with the assistance of finite element analytical software.

To reduce the machine cost, Wele used self-developed modularized components and domestically sourced components for 80% of the key components on the machine. The machine's multifunctional milling-lathing design also saves users the cost of buying stand-alone lathing and milling machines.

The MT-16 is an eco-friendly machine made with recycled steel and a closed recirculating cooling system that never leaks coolant.

This machine has excellent scalability, coming with controller interfaces for different brands including Fanuc and Siemens, as well as different tool-magazine sizes. In addition, the milling spindle system and attachment head system can be customized with a choice of 4,000/6,000rpm types and 8,000/12,000rpm types.

Grand Champion Award Winner: Ching Hung Machinery & Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.

Category: Other CNC Machine Tools

Product: Q4025L Gantry-type Linear Motor Drive Wire-Cut EDM
This machine was developed for making precision molds used by the microelectronics and consumer-electronics industries.

The machine is outfitted with the company's patented linear drive motor to assure machining accuracy and durability of the X, Y, and Z axes by eliminating backlash and friction.

The three axes work with high-resolution glass indexing scale and a fully-closed loop control, which together boost positioning precision and movement reaction. The company's patented pneumatic counter weight cylinder for Z-axis ram increases machining speed and flushing response, as well as increases the durability of the linear drive system.

The company's patented cylindrical “oil shroud” system and double-layer dust cover effectively keeps graphite dust from damaging the machine's transmission system on X, Y and Z axes.

The machine has a gantry structure to boost rigidity and reduce thermal deformation. The exterior compartment design of the machine body serves as a high temperature shield, while an internal water-circulating cooling system keeps temperature fluctuations in the machine to within plus or minus 0.5 C.

The Q4025L boasts a positioning accuracy of 3μm and repeat accuracy of 2μm.

Grand Champion Award Winner: Bei Jyu Precision Machine Co., Ltd.

Category: Components for Machine Tools

Product: Horizontal Tool Magazine with High-speed Large Tool Plate
This horizontal carousal-type tool magazine has two arms supported by hex-spline shafts, ensuring accurate tool gripping and zero-vibration exchange of heavy-duty tools.

A locking mechanism firmly clamps tools during swapping intervals to prevent tool drop. The magazine has a large chain-driven plate that completely absorbs transmission inertia.

Designed for installation at the base of horizontal machining centers, the tool magazine weight does not deform machine column and headstock, eliminating the possibility creating main spindle error of 0.001-0.002mm when the magazine is installed on a column.

This magazine is compact in size thanks to a tool pot that rotates 90 degrees to change tools directly and internally. With the magazine, the tool change arm to be shortened to 540mm. Tool changing is driven by a cam mechanism that enables fast tool changes, saves space, and eliminates time lag in tool changing process.