When approached by one of the UK’s leading thermoforming toolmakers with a request to increase the z-axis on one of its vertical machining centres by 1000 mm, XYZ Machine Tools was not in the least bit daunted. The modified machine will leave XYZ’s Devon factory today (Friday 24 April) ready for commissioning and being put into production.
While renowned for its standard range of machine tools developing one-off configurations for customers is something that XYZ Machine Tools and its engineering team are happy to respond to. In this case the customer needed the X and Y axis capability of one of its XYZ 1000LR vertical machining centres, but the height of the component required the additional 1050mm between spindle and table. By reconfiguring the machine using a specially designed riser block XYZ modified the machine to increase the standard minimum spindle nose to table dimension of 100 mm, taking it to to 1050, while maintaining the standard z-axis travel to give a range of 1050 – 1550 mm from spindle to table. These changes were achieved in a short period of time, with the modification being accommodated within new guarding and sheet metal work.
With the build complete the machine was put through the standard testing procedure undergone by every XYZ Machine before despatch, this includes extensive machine running and checks, such as the Renishaw Ballbar test to ensure that any machine shipped meets stringent quality and accuracy requirements laid down in XYZ’s procedures. With this complete the customer was keen to take delivery. testing complete the customer was happy to take delivery straightaway. “While virtually every machine we deliver is to a standard specification, we are always happy to discuss with customers modifications and adaptions to suit their specific requirements. In this case we believe what we have created is from a standard vertical machining centre a machine with a z-axis capacity that would have been difficult to find anywhere else, or be prohibitive financially,” Nigel Atherton, Managing Director, XYZ Machine Tools.
