Article From: 3/27/2009 Production Machining
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The Super-Precision Quest CHNC turning center is offered with a 27-mm, 5C collet-ready spindle or a 42-mm, 16C collet-ready spindle. The machine is designed for quick job change-over to meet the increasing demands of the medical, aerospace, defense and computer/electronics industries. This design configuration allows the use of top plates and tooling used on thousands of previous-generation CHNC machine installations.
Built on the same platform as Quest GT-series gang tool lathes, the Harcrete base is a synthetic structure. The 7.5-kW (10-hp) drive system is said to offer 30 percent more torque and is a complete Fanuc motor and drive system. A complement of the company’s workholding devices is available to grip workpieces (collets, step chucks, expanding collets, Sure-Grip jaw chucks, and so on).
Eight- or four-position gang tool-style preset-tooled top plates can be interchanged in minutes, making the machine suited for running repeat jobs and reducing overall setup time, the company says. Once a job has been set up and proved out the first time, the tooled top plate, program, workshift and tool offsets can be removed from the machine and stored until needed for the next batch of similar parts. Plus, the turret top plate index time is 4 times faster, further reducing cycle times.
The overall machine design incorporates the company’s high precision spindle with 15 millionths part roundness, high-precision linear guideways, and fixed pretensioned ballscrews designed to provide optimum stiffness, less friction, less heat and less thermal growth.
