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To this day you thought that the machining centre is the only solution to improve your production. This is thanks to the skills of the sales manager who hid under stages of negotiation 6 terrible secrets of that machine, without changing their position and keeping you like a defenceless puppy.
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BUT THERE IS A PROBLEM!
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It happens then, as it has already happened and it will happen again (my client’s words), that many problems of a structural and conceptual nature will occur on the machine, leaving you at the mercy of events and consequently slowing and damaging your production.
It is really so, that the thought of having saved time and money during the negotiation and orders, today you have extra costs which certainly go beyond and definitely outweigh the cost of better and more flexible solutions.
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ALL TRUE… BUT IT’S NOT YOUR FAULT!
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In fact, before we started building deburring machines, there were only two alternatives for the piece production:
- Improvised robots: buying a standard robot, some tools and build your own unit.
- The correct machining centre: take a standard machine and configure it according to the deburring needs.
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Even today, my competitors offer these solutions and unwary entrepreneurs take them seriously into consideration, seriously risking to introduce these in their production process and thereby triggering a series of dramatically unexpected events.
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“It’s amazing how other people
still sell and install these “faulty” solutions”
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This is a statement of my client, who after introducing the machining centre into his production, managed only to complete a series of boring problems until he went out of his mind and gave back the machine to the “sly” supplier.
You can find this testimony in my BLOG and on a particular page, later on I will tell you how to access it.
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BUT THERE IS ANOTHER PROBLEM:
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“BAD COMPANY BREEDS BAD HABITS”
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These “bad” machines instead of being fast and accurate, work maladroit without you ever finding their sense of purpose. In fact, they work “badly” just installed and continue working badly all their life and at every maintenance it’s even more evident.
Both solutions (improvised robots and adapted machining centres) are unsatisfactory for several reasons:
- They are NOT productive
- They are NOT reliable
- They are NOT profitable
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Every second you use them they cost more and more money.
It is impossible calculable how much their use costs.
If you are a visionary entrepreneur you cannot deny it, you have to be aware of it and if you insist on taking these old solutions, you will constantly have these problems:
- Inflexible machine
- Unproductive machine
- Imprecise machine while deburring
- Excessive use of consumable materials
- The machine produces too many scraps
- The machine is complex to use
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THE 6 SECRETS OF THE MACHINING CENTRE
THEY HAVE HIDDEN UNDER PHASES OF NEGOTIATION
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1. THE INFLEXIBLE MACHINE
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Today, having the capacity of adaptation is an undeniable necessity, and the market changes at the speed of light. On this increasingly battled market only those who can best adapt survive, so if your client changes the piece, you must not be in difficulty producing it.
With the Improvised Robot:
It’s NOT enough to pick a robot and 2 tools that are standard products on the market… If you want a flexible machine you need a suitable robot and a series of devices, which allow you, in the future, to perform different processes.
If your machine is rigid, it’s NOT simply enough to adapt changes or different tools, and you will still have a big problem on your hands.
The correct machining centre is a rigid solution par excellence. With the machining centre you can only use drills which are also limited in length and diameter:
- You can NEVER do cutting operations (unless there are huge cycle time compromises)
- You can NERVER file
- You can NEVER tape
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You will always have a very big electro-spindle in the way everywhere and the head of the machine will collide with the piece and the equipment. Then, to be a little more flexible, there is someone thinking of using 5-axis machining centres (thinking to emulate the robot).
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And the situation becomes even worse!
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Here are all the problems as before and a thousand others more related to the programming (later I’ll speak about that…)
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2. THE UNPRODUCTIVE MACHINE
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The Improvised Robot: I’ll tell you an anecdote to explain how serious this problem is.
I was showing a video about trimming to a technician who is a friend of mine, working in a foundry. He told me “ Is this video speeded up? Is it going at double the normal rate?”
He asked me because he was used to seeing my competitor’s machines. So if the machine is “bad” and improvised, its productivity is less than half of mine.
The correct machining centre: if the tools are limited, space is narrow and there are a thousand other limitations:
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How can there be productivity?
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Certainly it will not be the best you expect.
Have you ever thought where all the chips accumulate? Tool machines are built with a workbench (table) on which the work-piece leans and the chip is evacuated through the coolant.
For the deburring you can certainly NOT use the coolant (otherwise the pieces will remain wet and sticky); the chips will accumulate on the table and every few pieces you have to stop the production to clean it.
In short, with a correct machining centre you have to be happy with what you get.
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3. THE IMPRECISE MACHINE WHILE DEBURRING
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Precision is important, regardless of the precision of the cast piece. Let me explain, if your pieces are produced with a variable precision, they must be deburred in the same way and the deburring has to follow the shape of the piece that has changed.
To do this you have to use compensated tools, try to use drills accurately or maybe use less aggressive tools (files and belts).
The Improvised Robot: If you took this choice, you can forget precision. The tools you find on the market are only drills, everything else is missing. And if your machine does not have a base, you fumble along in the dark.
The correct machining centre: here it is even worse (if that is possible). You can only use drills and rigid tools. The machine approaches the piece with only one method of work, without ever having the opportunity to change it, always working in the same way.
Your idea is to buy the right machining centre because it is precise, but in actual fact you have a rigid machine and you cannot use any of its precision.
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4. EXCESSIVE USE OF CONSUMABLE MATERIALS
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It seems a marginal matter but it is very important. If the machine uses many consumables such as drills, belts etc.. you will not only have to buy them but you have to replace them too. This clearly causes machine standstill, which kills productivity.
The Improvised Robot:
NOT having machining units specifically designed to work in a robotised cell, the tool wear is infinitely higher.
I did a test: cutting the same piece with one of my machines and with a competitor’s. The tool wear was 5 times lower on my machine.
If you can reckon correctly, only the tool wear and the idle machines cost 5.000 € per year.
It is like this for all tool types. We have studied machining units and software that extend the life of the tool to also allow as few downtimes as possible.
The correct machining centre:
The programming of the machining centre is very difficult (later on I’ll speak about that), so you have to be content about the programming that you can do.
If you find an unexpected burr, the drill goes under stress. At first nothing happens, maybe even after a second, but after a few pieces you are at standstill in order to change the tool… costs, delays, headaches…
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5. THE MACHINE PRODUCES TOO MANY SCRAPS
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Scraps are a scourge to get rid of. When the piece is ready for deburring it is almost ready to be delivered. Rejection now causes massive wastage.
The Improvised Robot: here we open the big chapter of the many scraps that make a machine built without any project, without knowing all the issues related to the process. You will have:
- Pieces over processed
- Pieces minimally processed
- Pieces that got lost inside the machine
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The correct machining centre: hard to programme.
If your smelting changes slightly (the mould is dressed or welded or starts making a strange burr), you have to change programme, forcing your operator to do everything possible not to modify the programme in order NOT to risk creating waste, if it is NOT too late.
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6. THE MACHINE IS COMPLEX TO USE
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Nowadays, there is increasingly less time to devote to machines during processing. It is very important that the machine is easy to use, that the operator is instructed as little as possible and once the machine is in the factory, everything has to go quickly and be automated.
The Improvised Robot: Since there is usually no PLC and control board, the whole management of the machine is done on the robot keyboard. Using it is very difficult and it often happens that in the factory there is only one operator capable of using it and maybe he is not so good.
The correct machining centre: in order to perform the programme you have 3 possibilities
Here they are:
- ISO G-code programming
- Self-learning
- Cad Cam
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The ISO G-code programming in a computer language developed 30 years ago, with many different rules, and which today is impossible to use to process pieces in 3 dimensions.
If you have to deburr a piece you have to go around always keeping orthogonal to cutting the burr, therefore, you have to raise and lower, and you have to follow the curved profiles (the complex one).
Personally, I am able to programme this computer language and I can tell you that it’s impossible to programme the deburring of a piece.
The self-learning programme gives you the possibility to use the machine like a robot, namely, to move the whole machine and take it where you need it. It’s a pity that when you have to programme curved profiles, the CN is extremely rigid.
We have to perfectly programme the curves otherwise an error will occur and the machine cannot execute the programme or it stops in addition to giving you a thousand faults on one piece. In practice it’s just impossible.
The CAD-CAM is software for the PC, which allows offline programming. From your pc you can programme the deburring course and then you can convert it into the iso G-code language. The problem is that your cast piece is similar to the casting, but it’s not the same.
If your programme needs to be changed it will be necessary for you have to do it with the CAD-CAM. You can NOT do it from the machine because the CAD-CAM generates thousands of points to interpolate on the curves and no one can work on it, otherwise an error would occur on the CN.
Whatever your programming strategy is, with the CN it will be very difficult to change the programmes and only a super skilled technician will figure it out.
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If you think that what you have used so far
seems the best solution,
then do NOT call me.
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On the other hand, if you are a careful entrepreneur
and you want to solve your problems,
I have the right solution for you.
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Are you looking for a machine that is:
- Flexible
- Productive
- Precise
- Economical
- Efficient
- Easy to use
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I can provide solutions that no one else on
the market can guarantee you and where
results speak, more than a thousand secrets.
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Throughout these years I have spent hours with my engineers in developing a series of machines that will let you make the difference and allowing you to:
- save time
- earn money
- make your process like a well-oiled clock
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What you can find in my systems are fixed advantage points compared to other solutions and which are designed to be flexible:
- Retooling in 3 minutes with all devices designed to reduce machine idleness to a minimum. When you retool the machine you do not have to modify the programme. You just have to upload the file from the supervision system, mount the gripper (or the robot can change it automatically) and start production again.
- Flexible modularity: If in future you need another tool, you can order it, you will have it within two days, you can mount it on the machine without any problem and then you start with the processing. If you want to expand your machine, no problem. We can add the machining unit most suited to your needs.
- You have the highest productivity in the industry: we can use all tools at peak performance and work with tool manufacturers to enhance their performance and durability for piece machining.
- Compensation systems that allow you to best follow the shapes of your pieces. We have developed a series of tools that allow a thousand different processes, and also the one that fits your piece and process.
- Thinking about the process: the automatic chip evacuation, avoiding the minimum downtimes and facilitating maintenance, which in this case is always reduced to a minimum.
- Easy usage: simple to use and so intuitive, training the operator is really short, where also just one control panel manages the production flow, retooling and you monitor all the parameters of the piece.
- Finally, the installed supervision system allows you to do everything quickly and simply.
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HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE GOT SAVED
FROM THE 6 TERRIBLE SECRETS
EVEN IF THEY THOUGHT IT WAS
IMPOSSIBLE
Piercarlo Bonomi
The First Expert in Robotic Cutting and Deburring Systems
