Small shops automate milling power.

Like most small businesses, job shops typically don't have the financial resources to immediately invest in top-of-the-line CNC machining centers and equipment. What they do have is a wealth of knowhow and usually one or more manual vertical knee mills that have given them dependable, if somewhat slow, service over the years. Many of these small independent companies are discovering the benefits of two-axis control/three-axis readouts on both new mills or retrofitted onto their existing manual mills.

When Bob Schroeder, president and owner of Stanley-Adams Machine Co, Stockton, CA, wanted to make the move to CNC equipment for his 80-year-old company, he wanted to let his machinists make the transition easily be between manual and automatic operation. He selected MILLPWR, a two-axis control/three-axis readout from ACU-RITE Incorporated, Jamestown, NY, for a new Bridgeport mill he was buying. His objective was to give his operators the flexibility of selecting the machining process most suitable for the operation -- from simple milling jobs to complex parts. In the fully manual mode, MILLPWR uses the built-in three-axis readout; parts requiring two-axis automation can be easily run using the control mode.

Typical of the applications for which Stanley-Adams has realized the benefits of MILLPWR is producing a bearing slide bracket. Machining time has been reduced from 7.5 hours to 5.5 hours for a part that requires circular interpolation, calculating bolt hole locations, and repeatedly moving in and out of manual and automated operation. Before adding MILLPWR to his shop, Mr Schroeder says that workpieces had to be milled manually using one of several readout systems. Operators had to set up rotary tables and then move the parts to other machines for secondary operations.

For a startup company, these manual vertical knee mills often form the backbone of machines that are used to produce everything from prototypes to small production runs of products for a wide variety of industries, including electronics, medical, automotive, and aerospace. One such company is Service Machine & Tool, a Fort Wayne, IN, company that specializes in making products for these industries from materials as diverse as aluminum, brass, phenolics, Lexan, Delrin, Teflon, and titanium. "We pride ourselves on having the flexibility to handle any job that comes through the door," says president Mike Pease. Since opening its doors two and a half years ago, Service Machine & Tool has shown a 30% growth in business per year.

A combination of providing quality products at a reasonable price through the use of high tech equipment has provided his company with a competitive edge and spurred its growth, Mr Pease believes. Like many small shops, Service Machine didn't have the financial resources to immediately invest in top-of-the-line CNC machining centers. "We knew that to stay competitive we needed the accuracy and control CNC machining could give us. So we purchased a two-axis control/three-axis readout system for our manual mill that gives us CNC-like capabilities at an affordable price."

Service Machine also selected MILLPWR, the two-axis control with a built-in three-axis readout system that allows the user to automatically mill arcs, diagonals, circles, pockets, and bolt hole patterns. The closed-loop system combines ACU-RITEs precision glass scale linear encoder technology with ground and hardened ball screws and DC servomotor drives to ensure positioning accuracy and repeatability.

MILLPWR's easily programmable automatic functions are credited with reducing positioning time and eliminating the need for manual calculations. Standard functions are quickly programmed through hard-key canned routines. Mr Pease credits MILLPWR with pulling about 40% of the cost out of the parts, strictly through setup. "When we manufacture a part, we have many different setups. Now we can put multiple parts on the table and go from one to another to another. We've reduced our production time by 40%, which is a phenomenal figure."

Like other users of MILLPWR, Service Machine found it easy to use. The menu-driven software provides immediate part view graphics while programming for verification of the machining process. This allows the operator to see each step being programmed. All programming is done in a conversational language, so no knowledge of complicated G codes, prior programming, or CNC experience are necessary.

Boss Tool & Manufacturing, Freemont, CA, which had seen the ebb and flow of business over the last 25 years as a supplier to the semiconductor industry in Silicon Valley, has gotten a new lease on life by broadening its customer base to include the medical industry (30% of its business), government work (20%), the robotics industry (20%), and the balance to a variety of other jobs. Boss Tool's 26-man shop makes parts using stainless steel, aluminum, plastics, and "just about any metal you can think of," says John Kearns, Boss Tool foreman. He cites investment in technology by owners Dan and Greg Boss such as the purchase of a MILLPWR system with increasing speed and productivity in the shop. "We can run jobs in one hour that used to take four hours on the manual mill," he says.

At Boss Tool, the MILLPWR two-axis control/three-axis readout system has been retrofitted on a Bridgeport Series I manual mill. One application for a bearing housing with tight tolerance intersecting bores required that the groove either be done on a lathe or with a special facing head tool on the mill. Both operations required intricate setup. "Now it takes just a couple of minutes to get the MILLPWR programmed and we're making parts, says Mr Kearns.

The powerful built-in math and geometry features of MILLPWR improve productivity by reducing human error and nonproductive machining. For machining bolt holes, for example, selecting Bolt Circle on the control displays the centerline. The user simply has to enter the number of holes, the starting angle of the pattern, and the radius of the bolt hole circle. The machine does the rest, spinning right around the circle and drilling the holes without any calculations by the operator. Similarly, Boss Tool found that interpolating a circular hole can save on time and tooling. On a base plate with a series of different diameter holes, MILLPWR makes it possible to interpolate and drill a 3" dia hole in less than 5 min compared with the previous half hour or longer to determine the proper tooling and calculations for each hole.