CNC CYLINDRICAL GRINDER WITH MODULAR WHEELHEAD

The next-generation UltraGrind CNC cylindrical grinding machine has been launched by Jones & Shipman (Farmington, CT). The new machine, featuring a new modular wheelhead design, not only offers multiple wheel spindles configured to suit customer requirements, but also provides more power, more accuracy and increased component-weight handling. There is also a high degree of modularity in the way the machine can be configured, allowing customer-specific machines to be manufactured quickly and easily.

The UltraGrind CNC is designed for precision production environments, such as aerospace and higher volume manufacturing, including automotive, as well as high-precision sub-contract machining for biomedical, high-end process tool/die sets and motorsports engineering.

Built on a one-piece bed design, the machine combines great rigidity, stability and stock removal rates, while maintaining high precision. It incorporates many mechanical, electrical and software features that ensure it is easier to operate and change over in demanding production environments.

A new modular wheelhead design ensures customers have a wide choice of external and internal grinding spindle combinations, effectively allowing the customer to specify a custom machine but without the cost and build time associated with it. The modular wheelhead design gives wheel sizes up to 20 in x 4 in and wheel spindle power up to 20 hp, with ultra rigid spindles providing substantially increased metal removal rates and increased productivity.

Angular wheelhead positional accuracy and repeatability are assured via a high-precision 1 deg Hirth coupling. An optional true-B axis programmable to 0.001 deg utilizing feedback from a high-accuracy encoder mounted directly to the rotational spindle axis, infinitely variable positional resolution can be achieved. The machine currently offers 25 in or 40 in between centers (with larger machine length capacities planned) and center heights of 7 in, 8 in and 10 in. The increased diameter capacity (of up to 20 in) means there are options to cater for larger mass components up to 1,000 lb, and odd shaped components, which can result in high rotational inertia.

The UltraGrind machine uses a new Jones & Shipman proprietary Windows®-based graphical programming software suite, which further builds on the success of the Easy software that removes the requirement for operators to input code; however, ISO programming is fully supported and codes can be easily viewed and used if that is the customer's preference. The user-friendly software is built around a Fanuc® 320i with touchscreen control system. This reduces the time needed for operator training, machining set-up and changeover times.

A full suite of dressing and grinding programs are available for the operator. Easy-to-follow set-up pages allow the operator to digitize diamond and wheel positions by means of a simple user-friendly touch screen interface. Graphical images that represent programs and set-up are simply touched to program, providing quick and simple input. A wide range of additional options including gauging and autoloading are also available.

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