Industrial Factory Automation

Soul-Kozak has invested in Haas CNC machine tools to enable it to produce several different high-performance bicycle components. Mariusz Kozak's business in Lublin, Poland, develops a number of lightweight bicycle components, including a set of air-suspended downhill forks and a new design of bottom brackets (the cylindrical bearing to which the pedal cranks are attached). Combining lightness and stiffness is essential for the competitive cyclist. A racing mountain bike might already weigh as little as 9kg, so shedding excess 'fat' can be a very expensive undertaking. Soul-Kozak makes the parts that weight-obsessed customers buy to replace heavier, stock components, such as wheel-hubs, gear cassettes, handlebar stems and seat clamps. 'We aren't competing with the big names in bike parts,' said Kozak. 'In fact, our components are up to twice as expensive as similar products from Shimano, the market-leading Japanese manufacturer,' he added. The company is...

Haas has announced its plans to exhibit four of its advanced machining platforms at Grindtec 2010, which will be held near Munich from 17-20 March. The Haas Multigrind CB machine is designed for the flexible and universal machining of components such as aero-engine turbine blades, blisks and vanes, and enables all milling, grinding, and production belt linishing operations. Each operation is carried out automatically and the aero-engine blades are only clamped once, ensuring high precision. The Haas-designed automatic tool changer and part-loader systems allow for unmanned operation. Represented in the UK and Ireland by Dorman Machine Tools, Haas is continuing to expand its operations into the aerospace and power-generation industries, while offering high-end production solutions for the manufacture of artificial knee joints and associated components for the orthopaedic medical sector. The Haas machines are equipped with full automatic probe systems to measure blade profiles - these d...

Haas Automation explains how users should carry out directional hole tapping. A user may often need to complete an extra setup for that one hole at an angle to the surface machined or perhaps a radial hole on a circular component that requires drilling and tapping. One way to overcome extra setups is to use a fixed-angle tool or an adjustable tool for the most flexibility. While these tools are readily available from most tooling suppliers, the difficulty can be with the canned cycles in the machine. These drilling and tapping cycles make the assumption that the drilling or tapping action is going to be performed in the Z-axis direction, which is fine for the majority of cases but is unlikely to be the case. The programmer could write specific sub-programs and use a floating tap holder to allow for the change in spindle speeds through the tapping cycle. However, if using a Haas machine, he or she has the general-purpose tapping cycle, G184 for CW tapping, designed by Haas's contro...

Haas engineers have ensured that the capability for a full fourth axis is available on machines as an optional extra. The fourth-axis capability is said to be quick to set up and is easy enough, in most cases, for an operator to carry out. According to Haas, many machine shops recognise that a rotary fourth axis is not just for cylindrical parts but can return benefits in terms of cycle time savings, reduced setup times and component quality for those multi-sided parts where more than one setup/operation would otherwise be necessary on a conventional three-axis machine. Where a Haas machine already has the optional fourth-axis drive installed, connecting a Haas fourth axis can be carried out using Setting 30, where Haas stores all the parameters for all of its rotary models. Once the rotary is connected using the procedure in the Haas manual, the operator selects his model from the list and the Haas control will automatically retrieve the data and store in the correct parameters. For ...

Armi Chiappa, a manufacturer of parts for field guns and air rifles, has upgraded its equipment with CNC machine tools from Haas Automation. 'Compared to a vertical machining centre, the horizontal working area of the Haas EC-300 gives us 25 per cent greater production yield for the type of components we machine, which are often cut from solid billets and usually involve removing large quantities of metal,' said Rino Chiappa, managing director of the company. The company installed the first of its Haas EC-300 machines in 2007 and subsequently added two more - the first in 2008 and the second a year later. Each component in a new Chiappa creation is designed using computer-aided design/computer-aided manufacturing (CAD/CAM) before being assembled on screen using 3D simulation. Once satisfied the parts and finished assembly are correct, company designers create toolpaths that are sent directly to the Haas machines. Chiappa continued: 'We moved to Haas machines because we wan...