Get in the driver’s seat and control the machine before it controls your pocketbook.
Although there are many powerful tools in CNC machining, prediction might be the most powerful one of all. Instead of being reactive to a problem that has already occurred in a machine tool, the ability to predict and fix issues before they become issues can save a significant amount of money—as well as downtime.
Think about a car’s dashboard. It alerts drivers not only of engine problems, but the state of other crucial aspects of the car’s operation, such as coolant level, tire pressure, parking brake warning, and more. So, why shouldn’t a machine tool operator have the same access to information about the machine tool?
Cover your assets
With machine monitoring capabilities that monitor coolant peripherals, pull force, and tool life, machinists can utilize this data to perform preventive maintenance before coolant evaporates, a tool becomes dull or breaks, or even worse — a machine crashes, resulting from a tool pulling out of the spindle.
Advanced Machine & Engineering Co. (AME) offers these machine monitoring methods to help manufacturers get ahead of their machines and stay ahead of them by identifying potential sources of disruptions and preventing unscheduled machine downtime:
-
Coolant peripheral monitoring: Coolant concentration, coolant temperature, coolant levels, and filter life can all be observed and addressed before an issue occurs.
-
Pull force monitoring: Drawbars can lose clamping force of the toolholder in the spindle due to rusted or broken drawbar springs. When this happens, micro-movements, vibrations, and other malfunctions in the machine can lead to poor machining results, part rejects, and even machine breakdowns. To prevent these failures, pull force checks can be done, a process that can be automated inside the machine via the tool changer. If force is noticeably lost, the drawbar can be pulled out of the spindle and fixed for a couple thousand dollars as preventive maintenance before having to replace the entire spindle, which can cost $20,000 or more.
-
Tool life monitoring:Identifying tool wear and damage is critical when the goal is to change out tools before they break. This system optimizes tool usage by alerting operators of tool condition as well as tool failure.
By implementing these monitoring systems, the cost of downtime and maintenance can drastically decrease.
Talk to AME about machine monitoring systems!
To monitor your machine tools for optimal performance, contact us for more information. Machine monitoring is the key to predicting failures before they occur, saving a significant amount of downtime, maintenance time, and costs for more expensive repairs and machine component replacement.
It's only fair to share...
Cite Your Source
MLA
APA
Chicago
Comments (0)
Add a Comment Here