Hurco Companies, Inc.

According to the company, the high performance turning center features multitasking capabilities to save time.

Hurco says its largest machining center, the 3-m DCX32, has the capacity to handle large parts and molds for the aerospace and energy sectors. Featuring X-, Y- and Z-axis travels of 126" × 82.

Hurco features 11 machine tools with its integrated control powered by WinMax, which is software is designed to expand a shop’s capability. An interactive space with the control consoles is set up for booth visitors to test.

Hurco’s VM10U small-footprint, five-axis machining center minimizes setups, eliminates scrap by using powerful verification graphics and minimizes benchwork with smoothing algorithms that deliver quality surface finish. The machine has X-, Y- and Z-axis travels of 21", 16" and 19", respectively.

The TMX series of slant-bed lathes from Hurco includes three turning centers: TMX8, TMX8MY and TMX8MYS, all of which include construction and high-performance specifications for efficiency. Specifications include rapids of 950 ipm (X axis) and 1,200 ipm (Z axis), a spindle speed of 14,500 rpm and a 36-hp spindle motor. The all-digital control, drives and motors along with absolute encoders on all linear axes provide superior surface finish capability, the company says.

Read what shop owners had to say to someone who wondered whether he should open a very small shop of his own.

A chip conveyor can dramatically reduce a machine tool’s chip cleanup time and maintenance needs.   Machine tool supplier Hurco shares this matrix of the chip conveyor suggestions it gives to users of the company’s lathes. To view the chip selector guide, please see table below … .

Because conventional spindles on machining centers are typically designed with a fixed bearing preload (no springs), there isn’t any compensation for the thermal expansion that occurs from heat generation. Higher temperatures cause the bearing raceways to expand and tighten. This causes the bearing system to increase its preload beyond the original setting, which leads to increased axial and radial loading on the bearing system.

This shop watched its chosen niche become less profitable. Its response was a dramatic investment in new equipment, along with an information-related change that has made all of the shop’s equipment more cost-effective.

A supplier for the automotive industry, Die-Tron designs and constructs progressive, line and transfer dies for sheet metal stamping at its 41,000-square-foot facility.

A successful manufacturing company must achieve world-class capability within its walls. At the same time, a company has to go after global business opportunities. Hanel Corporation (New Berlin, Wisconsin) is a case in point. It has implemented several U-shaped production cells that help the company keep costs down and productivity up. At the same time, company leaders have aggressively courted customers in countries around the world by offering both tangible and intangible values.

For the past few years, this shop owner has taken a methodical approach to producing parts using bed mills and lathes for customers in various industries, including robotics, printing equipment, automotive and aerospace.

To get maximum leverage from its manufacturing know-how, Krieger Machine, a CNC shop in Stuart, Florida, draws on all of its software resources - CAD, CAM and shopfloor programming. The shop relies on KeyCreator from Kubotek as its main CAD resource. Mastercam from CNC Software is its main CAM resource. On the shop floor, conversational programming on the Hurco vertical machining centers proves to be another vital resource. All three systems help the shop succeed as a reliable producer of precision parts for a variety of industries.

A five-side machining program can be thought of as five different three-axis programs stitched together. Does that mean the task of programming a five-side job has to be five times as difficult, or five times as time-consuming?

Every good business plan must contain a number of specific goals, not the least of which includes experienced, professional workers with the necessary tools to get their jobs done right. But turning goals that are written on a piece of paper into reality is easier said than done. That's why J M Mold South developed a specific partnership. The company services the needs of plastic and die cast molders, builds new molds and repairs existing molds.

Conventional wisdom about standard milling operations has always been that compared to square shoulder cutters, lead angle cutters are easier on the spindle, can be run at higher table feed rates, and cut freer. Finishes are typically better and, with the addition of a wiper flat insert, finishes could be further improved. Due to the chip thinning attributes of this type of cutter, actual table feeds can be more rapid, albeit at the sacrifice of some depth of cut compared to a zero lead cutter.

How do you improve productivity with the excessive amount of time and effort it takes to program parts before they can be run on the shop floor? As parts have become more complex over the years and demands for accuracy have become more stringent, the challenge has become even greater. Shop owners are faced with the dilemma of being even more productive, while still spending hours programming machinery before cutting their first parts. Now there is an option for shop owners that enables them to go from part to part on the shop floor without involving off-line programmers.

This New England job shop's key to flexible responsiveness is allowing its machinists to have total control on the shop floor. Find out how they can produce 250 to 300 orders per month--with 30% of them being new parts.

Experts have been predicting that the Internet will be the next technological innovation to dramatically affect the machine tool industry.