Germany-based
Heller Machine Tools, which has a factory in Redditch that produces selected four-axis and five-axis horizontal machining centres (HMCs) for world markets, will give a UK debut to its second-generation HF 3500 five-axis HMC at
MACH 2022 (Hall 20, Stand 130). The event is taking place 4-8 April at the NEC, Birmingham.
The company will also feature the fourth generation of its H-Series four-axis HMCs. The HF 3500 Gen2, with its 710 x 750 x 710mm work envelope, as well as the larger HF 5500 (900 x 950 x 930mm), are available with a fixed table or an automatic pallet changer.
They are offered with either an HSK-A63 or HSK-A100 tool interface in three versions, Power, Speed and the new option of Pro, the latter being intended for long periods of simultaneous five-axis machining.
Enhancements in the second generation include: an approximate halving of the minimum distance between the spindle nose and the centreline of the 225deg swivelling trunnion; the availability of twin motors and ballscrew drives for moving the trunnion/rotary table assembly in the Z axis, with position feedback via linear scales; and the offer of six new spindles produced in an automated facility at Heller’s headquarters in Nürtingen.
Other notable improvements include increased stiffness of key components, shorter chips-to-chip times, and faster tool changes from a chain-type magazine with up to 240 pockets — or a rack-type magazine with up to 405 positions. The high-end Pro package additionally offers 10m/s2 acceleration in the X, Y and Z axes.
A particular focus at
MACH 2022 will be Heller’s ability to supply turnkey cells for highly efficient machining of titanium and nickel superalloys, particularly in the aerospace industry but also in other sectors including oil and gas.
Here, the machine manufacturer will stress the considerable range of different spindles that it manufactures in-house to suit different applications, and the minimised non-productive times offered by achieving a large reduction in run-up times for the new spindles; maximum revs are now reached in 1.4sec for the HSK-A63 variants and 1.8sec for HSK-A100.
All spindles feature Heller’s Zero-Spindle system for rapid interchangeability, leading to maximum machine availability coupled with low service costs.
Also highlighted at
MACH 2022 will be Heller4Industry, the group’s worldwide drive towards integration of its machine tools and controls into the Industry 4.0 environment.
Within the ‘multi-faceted portfolio’ are: Heller4Operation, an easy-to-use, operator-oriented user interface; Heller4Services, an interface that focuses on transparency of digital manufacturing and maintenance; and Heller4Performance, which includes workpiece-specific analysis for optimisation of a process and extraction of real-time data over the internet — plus evaluation and graphical display in the cloud.
Heller says its approach to improving production processes is based on today’s enhanced possibilities for extracting and evaluating more information from existing sensors and making better use of that data using additional computing power in the control and Siemens Sinumerik-Edge technology, which is designed to improve production processes, for which the control manufacturer claims breakthroughs in four inter-related areas.
They are: the amount of high-frequency data that can be collected during machining; the architecture it has developed to process terabytes of data in just a few minutes; the semantic data model that defines how the information relates to the actual machining process; and the applications available for analysis, optimisation and feeding back meaningful results to the control.
Another example of Heller’s partnership approach is the availability of an advanced training machine, ProfiTrainer, which is designed to raise the skill level of horizontal machining centre operators and is likely to be of interest to industrial training establishments, colleges and schools.
Tooling is another focus, as Matthias Meyer, managing director of Heller Machine Tools explained: “Close collaboration between a machine tool company and a tooling specialist is the only way to really drive forward significant advances in metal cutting that can lead to double-digit increases in productivity, especially when cutting superalloys.
“It is very difficult for either party in isolation to develop solutions that achieve this level of improvement and to answer customers’ questions comprehensively.
“That is why we have in place strategic partnerships with various tooling suppliers, notably Seco, to identify the best tooling solution for every machine we supply.”
The ‘holistic Heller service’ includes time studies that are accurate to within 5%, evaluation of requisite work-holding, consideration of automation and unmanned running requirements, built-in chillers for cooling the machine elements if they are required to achieve tolerance, tool-life monitoring and broken tool detection.