MANUFACTURING NEWS Article ~ Complicated Parts Performed in One Operation
September 28, 2016
Fasano Corporation needed to make complicated parts in one operation, which it could not accomplish with its old style cam operated Swiss-type screw machines. “In addition, we wanted to free up the operator’s time so he could spend more time setting up jobs instead of loading bar stock and removing chips manually,” said Ron Fasano, Vice President, Fasano Corporation. “To do this, we embarked on a search to add new modern manufacturing equipment to our shop.
“The solution at the time was a Swiss-type CNC machine with a sub-spindle that would allow the company to manufacture more complicated parts.”
“Once we became comfortable with the CNC machine technology, we knew we needed to grow in this area,” continued Fasano. Subsequently, over an eight-year period, Fasano Corporation has acquired six Hanwha Swiss-type CNC screw machines with automatic bar loaders, ranging from 12 mm to 32 mm in diameter capacity. These machines can perform operations such as turning, drilling, tapping, milling, broaching, knurling and threading.
“This solved many of our problems and challenges,” said Fasano. “Productivity has increased, reducing or totally eliminating secondary operations. We are now able to competitively take on more complicated work.
“Set-up time is comparable to cam machines; however, similar families of parts only need minor program changes as opposed to a completely new cam changeover. Overall daily yield has improved because the machines run at high speeds with high-pressure coolant and up-to-date cutting tool technology.”
Personnel no longer have to clear chips manually. Parts do not have to be separated from the turnings because they are transferred from the machine’s sub-spindle to a parts chute, onto a conveyor and then into a basket. A vacuum part recovery unit was purchased for small part recovery to allow collection of miniature lightweight plastic parts.
The Hanwha machines are capable of running up to 10,000 RPM. Added accessories on all machines include an HP Cool Tech high-pressure coolant delivery system and a Filter Mist system to provide a healthier environment for employees. Fasano Corporation extracts cutting oil from all of the chips that leave the facility. The oils are then reused and the metals are sold as scrap.
Fasano Corporation manufactures close tolerance turned parts to .0002″. Materials typically machined at Fasano Corporation include stainless steel, drill rod, BeCu, aluminum, titanium, a variety of aircraft alloys including Stellite, Inconel and all types of plastics. Industries served include electronics, aerospace, automotive and medical.
Machine inventory at Fasano Corporation includes two Hanwha SL12H, one Hanwha XD12H, two Hanwha XD20Hs and one Hanwha XD32H. Fasano Corporation has a full line of inspection capabilities, including comparators, microscopes at every work station, indicator micrometers, Johnson thread gauging, calibrated gauge block sets and master round gauges.
Fasano Corporation, Inc. was founded in 1972 by Albert and Ronald Fasano (father and son) for the purpose of producing precision Swiss screw machine parts. They began with only six Tornos Swiss-type screw machines. President Albert Fasano has worked in the machining industry for over 70 years, retiring at the age of 90. Ronald Fasano, Vice President, is an expert machinist and cam maker with over 50 years of experience. He holds a bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering from Roger Williams College. Continuing in the tradition, he is now joined by his two sons, Ronald and Vincent, both educated in the manufacturing and engineering field.
Mary Fasano, Ron’s wife and company bookkeeper for over 30 years, recently implemented Realtrac ERP job shop management software to update the way in which jobs are processed, from estimation of jobs to final product to accounting. Routers are issued for all jobs, and employees sign off to show accountability for operations performed. Material and parts inventories are tracked more easily, with associated material certifications readily accessible. Certificates of conformance are attached to every job.
All incoming material has been inspected and certified by Fasano Corporation’s suppliers. Certifications are also required from firms on any outside work to be done, such as heat treating and plating.
“We are a small, family-owned machine shop with a reputation for taking pride in our workmanship,” said Fasano. “Our specialty has always been high quality, close tolerance, small precision work. We take the time to do the job right the first time. We work as a partner with our customers, vendors and employees.”
HP Cool Tech, Inc. is partnered with Blackstone Swiss Engineering.
Oxford, MA, April 2016 _ HP Cooltech, Inc. PowerPump High Pressure Coolant System is the newest and most effective coolant delivery technology in today’s sophisticated CNC machine tool world. The benefits of high pressure coolant systems include increased manufacturing productivity, longer tool life, better chip control, and superior quality in the final finished product.
Blackstone Swiss Engineering is committed to providing technical support and engineering services to the Swiss machining industry in a cost effective way. By contracting with Blackstone, machine shops get engineering support when they need it, and keep engineering costs down when they don’t.
Blackstone Swiss combines 20 years of swiss screw machine experience with state of the art CAM software. The combination of hands on expertise and leading edge technology positions Blackstone Swiss to be an important partner in your efforts to maximize your productivity.
The combination of these services will provide you with the return on investment for the purchase of a PowerPump High Pressure Coolant System.
By now, most of you are familiar with the conventional reasons for using high pressure coolant – the ability to break chips in tough material, the increased feed rates for turning and milling, the improved surface finish and tool life. The benefits are fairly obvious and the math is straightforward when justifying the cost of the pump. When looking closely most shops come to the conclusion that a high pressure coolant pump is a necessary addition to their Swiss screw machines. There are some holdouts, however, that can’t justify the price tag of the pump with savings in tooling costs, surface finish, secondary operations and cycle times. To those shops, we would offer some overlooked, but equally as important benefits to adding high pressure coolant to their Swiss arsenal.
As a contract Manufacturing Engineer, BSE consults with many different Swiss machine shops, both in New England and across the country. BSE have produced parts in a wide variety of materials for a number of industries – orthopedic, dental, aerospace, fiber-optic, firearms, defense and electrical connectors. For me every application is different. The type of machine, material, tooling, and workpiece requirements vary from job to job. One of the few constants for BSE is the high pressure coolant system. It seems that no matter what the application is, a high pressure coolant system is instrumental in making the part better, faster and cheaper. Sometimes the benefit of the pump is simply about breaking a turning chip, but sometimes it isn’t. Let me give a few real-world examples from recent work where high pressure coolant has been a game changer in less obvious ways.
Customer A – orthopedic surgical tools
The application is a 3” long component with a .062” id through the length of the part.
Without high pressure pump – Customer A was purchasing cannulated bar stock at $75.00 per foot with a 16 week lead time.
With high pressure coolant – The customer was able to apply deep hole drilling techniques to drill a .062” diameter hole 2.5” deep. The customer is now able to purchase solid bar stock that costs approximately $5.00 per foot and is available in less than a week.
The additional cycle time is 6 seconds.
Including the cost of the drill the material cost was reduced from $19.15 to $2.28 each.
Customer B – orthopedic implants
The application is a self-tapping bone screw made from implant-grade titanium.
Without high pressure pump – Originally the customer was utilizing a single-point threading tool to produce the tapered threads on their bone screws. The large helix angle of these orthopedic threads resulted in poor tool life of the single point inserts. Additionally, the length of the screw required threading in multiple sections, resulting in mismatches in the thread profile.
With a high pressure coolant system the customer was able to utilize a Thread Whirling toolholder to produce consistent threads in a single pass from stock diameter.Thread quality was improved, cycle time was reduced, and tool life increased from approximately 25 pieces per single point insert to over 1000 pieces per set of thread whirling inserts.
In both cases, the presence of a high pressure coolant system opened up the ability to utilize machining techniques that would be impossible without it.
The high pressure coolant system can change the game even when you’re not cutting exotic material or making high end medical components. Consider these two cases:
Customer C – electrical components
The application is a component that is .078” diameter by .037” long with a .044” diameter through hole. The part is rough machined on the main spindle, picked off, finish machined in the subspindle, and ejected into a custom basket.
Without high pressure pump – Originally the customer used an ejection pin that was .072” in diameter to push the part out of the subspindle into the basket. The first pin bent and jammed in the subspindle collet after about 15 pieces. The next two pins failed to eject parts (the tiny parts stuck to the pin instead of falling in to the basket) resulting in crashes and damaged pickoff collets.
With high pressure coolant the customer was able to reroute an existing high pressure coolant line to run coolant through the subspindle collet. He used high pressure coolant instead of the ejection pin to basically flush the small part out of the pickoff collet and in to the basket.
Using this technique the customer was able to run the job continuously for two days to make 1100 pieces without one ejection failure, and finish the job two days early.
Customer D – valve bodies
The application is a .750” diameter by 2” long valve body with multiple OD grooves and contours made from 321 stainless steel.
High pressure problem – Customer D called to complain that the part that BSE had programmed and estimated a cycle time of 3 minutes was actually only yielding 10 parts per hour. Despite using high pressure coolant on the grooving tools, unbroken chips were still collecting on the OD (sometimes this happens). The machine operators were forced to use an optional stop in the cycle to clear the chips from the OD before pickoff. Running single cycle with a dedicated operator is extremely inefficient, and despite a cut time of 3 minutes, the actual yield in parts at the end of the day was far lower than it should have been.
High pressure solution – After several unsuccessful attempts to break the grooving chips, the customer redirected an unused high pressure line to clean the unbroken chips from the OD before pickoff.
The customer was able to clean the part consistently and the machine was able to run in continuous mode and unattended, as Swiss machines were intended to be run, and the customer was able to realize the maximum possible daily yield.
These 4 cases help demonstrate the usefulness of a high pressure coolant system beyond the basic application of coolant to the tool tip.
HP Cool Tech, Inc. Introduces NEW 12000 Series with MEC-Connect
MEC-Connect is a direct communications connection between the CNC control and the PowerPump PLC.
Oxford, MA, May 5, 2014 _ HP Cool Tech, Inc. manufactures Power Pump high pressure coolant systems for manufacturing processes.
Having all the features of the high quality, performance proven 11000 Series PowerPump the 12000 Series include the following features:
- M-code and pressure settings are block entries in the CNC part program. No need to re-engineer the high pressure profile on the next setup.
- Set a different pressure for the same port at another location in the CNC part program.
- Set a separate pressure for every m-code block in the CNC part program.
- Elimination of the m-code I/O board.
- Faster more robust and reliable communications link with the CNC.
- PowerPump status displayed on the CNC monitor.
• Actual pressure above and below set point.
• Actual pressure
• Change filter bag - Descriptive messages for all the PowerPump alarms on the CNC monitor.
• System under pressure
• System over pressure
• Clogged filter
• Inverter fault
• Communication loss
The 12000 series PowerPump is variable volume from .75 GPM to 8.0 GPM with programmable pressure settings from 50 PSI to 2000 PSI oil base coolant and 50 PSI to 1000 PSI water based coolant.
The 12000 series only produces the volume required for the set pressure where as a fixed volume pump consumes the energy required to generate the maximum volume the pump will produce.
For more information, contact HP Cool Tech, Inc., Inc. at 508.326.6922 or visit the company Web site at www.hpcooltech.com.
HP Cool Tech, Inc. Rolls Out Line of High-Pressure Coolant Systems
Extends tool life, improves finishes, and controls chips.
Oxford, MA, November 25, 2013 _ HP Cool Tech, Inc. manufactures Power Pump high pressure coolant systems for manufacturing processes. Systems include non-reservoir and reservoir pumps for CNC machine tools including Swiss screw machines, turning centers and milling machines. Integrating the HP Cool Tech’s compact Power Pump saves floor space and eases installation to a simple moveable unit with neat precise hose routing.
The Power Pump 10, 20 and 30,000 series with a total of six units to choose from, are designed for short cycle times for Swiss screw, turning and milling centers with coolant available in machine sump and for long cycle times for turning and milling centers where sufficient coolant is not available in the machine sump. The Power Pump series are designed to allow the filter bag to be changed in 5 minutes or less. All the series systems alert the operator when the filter bag is approximately 75% full so the filter bag change can be scheduled at an opportune time.
The Power Pump has an infinitely adjustable output by port with the HMI touch screen option. The HMI visually displays the Power Pump operating conditions at all times. All the coolant flow goes directly to the designated tool at the pressure selected and no flow is diverted across a relief valve, reducing the generation of heat in the coolant. Machining experts themselves developed and engineered Power Pump coolant solutions technology for optimal use in the manufacturing environment.
NEW Web Site
Oxford, MA, September 25, 2013 _ HP Cool Tech, Inc., a high pressure coolant system for the machining industry, recently launched its new website, www.hpcooltech.com. The wholly redesigned and revised website includes navigation connecting visitors to information on HP Cool Tech’s range of products and services. The website design has a fresh new uncluttered look and format that lets users locate information simply and effectively.
HP Cool Tech’s president Richard Packard says of the launch, “Our new web site embodies HP Cool Tech’s commitment to meeting the changing needs, challenges, and digital expectations of our customers. In keeping with our goal of simplifying the business process, our new site provides flexibility to change and grow as our users’ needs do.”
HP Cool tech, Inc. a full service high pressure coolant system for the machine tool industry. High Pressure cooling is the newest and most effective cooling technology in today’s sophisticated CNC machine tool world. The benefits of high pressure cooling systems include increased manufacturing productivity (up to 75 %), longer tool life, better chip control, and superior quality in the final finished product.
For more information, contact HP Cool Tech, Inc., Inc. at 508.326.6922 or visit the company Web site at www.hpcooltech.com.