Zone: Machining Centers & Milling Machines

How to Improve Machining Center Accuracy

Accuracy is not just inherent to the machine—it also depends on how the machine is used. Try these techniques to let a new or existing CNC machining center achieve its potential precision.

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Video: Getting Started With Minimum Quantity Lubrication

Minimum quantity lubrication does not require a special machine tool or special tooling. This video makes the case for MQL and describes how to apply it effectively.

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Small Engine Precision Fuels Fifth-Axis Production Workholding Concept
1/11/2012 Modern Machine Shop: The challenge holding tight tolerances for its billet RC helicopter engine components drove this company to develop an innovative fifth-axis tombstone device to complete multiple parts on an HMC in one setup.
Pallet Changer Keeps Machine and Operator Busy
12/16/2011 Modern Machine Shop: A new VMC with an automated pallet changer helped this shop meet customer requirements for lower prices and faster deliveries.
Which Five-Axis Machine for Mold Makers?
12/16/2011 Modern Machine Shop: This Chicago-area mold shop compares tilting-spindle and tilting-table five-axis machines.
Engineering a Production-Oriented VMC
11/21/2011 Modern Machine Shop: Extended VMC cycle times due to modest spindle performance and slow non-cutting functions can increase costs for high-volume applications. However, new VMC offerings can minimize cycle times while maximizing competitiveness for production work.
Video: Five-Axis Machining at Chicago Mold Engineering
11/15/2011 Modern Machine Shop: This mold maker describes its use of both tilting-spindle and tilting-table five-axis machines.

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Overview Of:
Machining Centers & Milling Machines

The term “machining center” describes almost any CNC milling and drilling machine that includes an automatic toolchanger and a table that clamps the workpiece in place. On a machining center (as contrasted with a turning machine), the tool rotates, but the work does not. The most basic variety of this type of machine is also the most basic CNC machine tool—a vertical machining center. While vertical machining centers can be high-end machines because of their precision and/or their size, a small and simple vertical machining center is a relatively low-cost CNC machine tool that often represents a new machine shop’s first machine tool purchase. The orientation of the spindle is the most fundamental defining characteristic of a machining center. Vertical machining centers and horizontal machining centers have (obviously) vertically and horizontally oriented spindles. Vertical machines generally favor precision while horizontal machines generally favor production—but these generalizations are loose, and plenty of machines break out of them. Other choices in machining center orientation include the universal machining center, which can change between vertical and horizontal spindle arrangement. More common than this is the five-axis machining center, which adds rotary motion to the machine’s linear motion. The machine pivots the tool and/or the part not only to mill and drill at various angles, but also to mill swept surfaces. Machining centers linked by an automated pallet system can form an automated machining cell. Such a cell can machine a queue of different parts without operator attention by shuttling the parts in and out of the various machines as appropriate. Related machines in this category include the boring mill, which generally describes a large machine for heavy and/or precise milling and hole making. Another related machine is the manual milling machine. Such a machine may have some basic programmability, but it generally lacks an automatic toolchanger, meaning the tool change is a manual step.