Completely automating bandsawing processes, MBD[R] Model 4340 offers infinitely adjustable material clamp and max capacity of 60 x 20 x 14. Servo controlled feed table guides bandsaw blade along cutting path and through material. Machine eliminates need for templates and marking, automatically sawing block and panel materials. Automated process optimizes raw material yield, productivity, part quality, and accuracy.


Warsaw, IN - Warsaw Machinery, Inc. offers the new MBD[R] Model 4340 CNC Automatic Bandsawing System for cutting parts quickly and accurately. This bandsaw system offers complete automation of the bandsawing process, automatically sawing block and panel materials.

The Model 4340 bandsawing system replaces several manual bandsaws and eliminates the need for templates and marking, virtually eliminating set-up. The automated process provides greater raw material yield, increased productivity, improved part quality and accuracy along with reduction of finished parts inventory. A servo controlled feed table guides the bandsaw blade along a cutting path and through the material. This system offers an infinitely adjustable material clamp to 14" thick and a maximum capacity of 60" long by 20" wide by 14" thick.

Warsaw Machinery, Inc. offers bandsawing, clamping, cutting, routing and material handling machines and also provides equipment, parts and services for Tyler[R] woodworking equipment, MBD[R] bandsaws and Handy[R] clamps. Custom industrial machines are also available.

The company is launching in the American market a new, robot equipped, fully automatic, CNC grinding machine--the WAM 370R--for peripheral grinding of cutting inserts in single and multi-workpiece clamping. This machine enables the simultaneous grinding of up to three ceramic cutting inserts. A pallet storage table with four of the company's VP pallets allows for the uninterrupted grinding of some 800 cutting inserts before operator attention is required, says the company.

Some advantages of this new machine, according to the company, are the small space requirement resulting from its compact design, a fully integrated Adept robot system, compact pallet storage and improved quality compared with magazine loaded machines. In addition, the automatic grinding machine, which can also grind high-precision steel parts, can be quickly changed over from job to job. The resulting workpieces, the company reports, have a high cutting edge quality and are processed to close tolerances. Cutting inserts of almost every type of hard material can be ground, from carbide, ceramic materials and Cermets up to CBN and some PCD. The system Autodress provides for dressing the large 350mm diameter grinding wheel. Dressing is done directly on the machine at selectable intervals.

The company says the CNC system allows for the flexible programming of complex geometries as well as user-friendly dialog programming of standard cutting inserts. Remote diagnosis and support via modem and pre-grinding simulation of the grinding process are some of the features of this system. The machine works at reduced cycle times and highest productivity and reliability, and its operation is user friendly, the company says.

V & G Dynamic Machine & Tool, Inc. of Marble Falls, Texas, uses high-end VMCs and CNC mills and employs skilled machinists and CNC operators to support the development of new instrumentation and technology for the semiconductor industry.

When Volker Steffen founded V & G Dynamics in 1988, the company was doing mainly repair work using two manual mills. Mr. Steffen knew that if he had CNC there was the promise of longer runs and production of complex parts--giving access to new markets and increasing sales and profitability. But these benefits come with a cost in terms of capital, training and learning. Mr. Steffen was looking for a way to implement GNC gradually--a transition that took the characteristics of his shop and people into consideration.

He discovered an opportunity at an open house held by his local dealer. "I was at an open house at a machine dealer one weekend, and I saw a manual mill with some sort of external motors mounted on the table," Mr. Steffen says. "The dealer showed me how the mill was doing CNC work by having the power feeds move the table, under the control of a PC. Best of all, I didn't have to start using a computer right away. I could just use the power feeds in the 'Teach Mode.' You move the table to a desired position, press 'set' on the pendant, move to the next position, press 'set' again, and so on. At the end of the sequence you press 'run,' and the machine plays back exactly the moves you told it to execute. It's that simple."

On seeing this, Mr. Steffen first began considering doing more than just manual mill work. V & G had grown to include a lot of small-volume (1 - 500 piece) production work, but Mr. Steffen was not at the point where he needed to spend tens of thousands of dollars on a single CNC. So in 1993, he decided to first retrofit one of his manual mills with the "intelligent power feeds"--a basic two-axis Servo II automated control system with the "Teach" pendant, made by Servo Products Company of Pasadena, California--which he mounted himself on a Summit manual mill with a Sargon digital readout. The cost of the retrofit was well within his reach, and the promise of increased production made the whole deal attractive. Within days, production was at levels he had never seen before, and both he and his machinists were using the "Teach Mode" feature without problems.

Such use of a basic retrofit package makes sense for shops where owners and operators don't have prior experience with CNCs. In the case of V & G, its manual mills had essentially become three different machines with one simple retrofit: one that still does manual work, one that uses the Teach Pendant and one that can perform CNC work (when connected to a dedicated PC). The DRO interface adds accuracy to the Acme lead screw by using the scale for positioning accuracy instead of the encoder on the motor, In addition, the DRO enhances the machinist's productivity.

With the Servo II control system used for the retrofit, one-of-a-kind or production run parts can be machined, and the table can be moved either using the pendant or handwheels. The "taught" programs are limited to straight line and angle cuts. The system cannot be taught to machine a circle. Subroutines can be called up, and program steps can be changed, added or inserted. It's easy to delete entire programs from pendant memory, or delete a subroutine call--which is useful when "programming" on the fly. An operator also can set, clear or drag axes travel limits (for example, reset limit beyond current position) and can playback a program held in the pendant's memory.

The Servo II control system can be made more productive by hooking up a PC, which simply can be used to transfer programs between the PC and the pendant; with Servo CNC software and a dedicated PC, the machine has full CNC capabilities. This comprises the second step in the gradual conversion to CNC machining. Programs "written" on the pendant can be transferred to the PC for storage and for re-use at a later time. The transferred pendant programs arc converted to common CNC codes. Conversely, programs can be written and edited on the PC and transferred later to the pendant, though only a limited set of CNC codes are available. This means two things: Operators can generate CNC code without knowing programming, and they can execute previously written CNC code without using the control (it's done via the pendant). Production goes up, and accuracy and repeatability improve. The absence of a steep learning curve makes training the operators brief and inexpensive.

V&G began by doing most of its CNC work using the conversational mode programming on the control. By going through a step-by-step process, the operator answers simple questions about the current job, and the control automatically develops a program, which is then seamlessly translated into G-code that can be used on any Servo CNC machine. Even if the operator makes a mistake in the programming, he or she can easily edit the specific line that needs correction.

The company has announced the release of Vericut 5.3, which features a tight integration with Catia V5. Vericut is CNC machine simulation, verification and optimization software that is said to enable users to eliminate the process of manually proving-out NC programs. The company says it reduces scrap loss and rework. According to the company, the program also optimizes NC programs to produce efficient tool paths that both save time and produce higher-quality surface finish. Vericut supports G codes or native CAM output to simulate milling, drilling, turning, wire EDM and mill/turn machining operations.

The Carla V5-to-Vericut interface follows the Vericut interface for Catia V4 and is said to provide a smooth upgrade path for Carla users who have transitioned to V5.

Users can verify individual operations, a series of operations or a set of complete NC programs. All stock, fixture and design geometry is automatically transferred to Vericut in the correct orientation, along with NC program, tooling, machine and control data and other simulation parameters.

Vericut runs independently of the Catia process, so users can continue working in Carla version 5 while simulating and optimizing NC programs. With Verieut as the simulation package, users can also verify and optimize NC programs from other CAM systems in CL or post-processed G-code format. Vericut runs under Windows and UNIX.

The company recently introduced the Hardpoint 300, a CNC machine that combines turning, drilling, milling and grinding. It is a modular concept machine and can be configured with up to four main spindles and a variety of tooling combinations, depending on user needs. The machine can machine the front and rear faces of a single part; machine a single face on two parts simultaneously; machine the front and rear faces of two parts simultaneously; or machine a single face on four parts simultaneously.

The company says its product represents a flexible and economic machine concept for high-quality, complete machining of small components. The axes is variable, with up to ten possible. The machine offers fully automatic, synchronous complete cutting of complex workpiece geometries, up to a diameter of approximately 3" x 3" (80 mm x 80 mm).

The modular machine concept is said to ensure machining efficiency and flexibility. The various platforms are said to allow several cutting processes to be combined, thereby eliminating the need to operate multiple machines. The company says this reduces floor space requirements and operation costs. The machine incorporates an internal gantry loader. External loaders are also available as is a post-process measuring system.