Recommend a CNC drill line

We drill and tap a lot of lengths of flat bar for the custom projects we produce at our architectural metal shop. Most items are a few inches up to 120” and have a run of 3-10 drill and counter sunk or tapped holes to assemble the finished items. Our projects are one off custom items that are built to fit our clients homes and are not repeated.

Currently I have a burgmaster turret drill with a manual y axis and 144” linear positioner on the x axis. The setup is shop built and while works it is just not as accurate, predictable or easy to use as I would like for my employees. I need to hold a tolerance of .005” to .010” for part to bolt up or look right. All parts are made in solidworks and I can easily generate a hole table with x/y locations.

I would like to find a purpose built machine that is easy to use and holds a tolerance of at least .005”. Recommendations for machines to research would be very helpful. Our parts are very quick to make so we dont need full CNC as cycle times are very short and each part has a unique hole patten and will never be made again. Someone will be standing in front of the machine, but am not adverse to CNC.

Material is stainless and bronze/brass and typically ranges from 1/2 square bar to 1x4 flat bar. We will also do square tube up to 4”. I would like a minimum of at least 12” in y and 120” in x.

I have yet to establish a budget, but if I could find something for $25k I’d buy it today. 50-100k I’d have to think about. I found a FlexCNC which looks about perfect but cost 200k which is out of my budget. I’ve thought about a gantry router with a drill head but don’t know if it’s rigid enough. A structural beam line is similar but I need it to be higher precision and scaled down to my material. Does anyone have recommendation on specific machines to look at. Or a specific type of machine that I should be looking up or completely other ideas?


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The flex drill looked good at fabtech. Without hesitation, Controlled Automation makes really nice drill lines. Ours is 15 yrs (?) old and can not hold .005 anymore, maybe if we went around and replaced follow probe arms and encoder racks and pinch wheels- it holds a 64th all day (its set tolerence) 128th and it hunts for position. They might be up for making a small drill. 25 is really a low number for a commercial nc machine.
You wouldn't need 25 hp spindles and conveyors to move 60 foot beams, and bunks with drag chains for the same, so that helps cost. Drill lines need double the length of stock floor space at least, but the length of x is not a cost factor in building (or much of one). I would go with 24 feet to allow running of tubes. That 4 feet sometimes saves big drops.

memphisjed said:

The flex drill looked good at fabtech. Without hesitation, Controlled Automation makes really nice drill lines. Ours is 15 yrs (?) old and can not hold .005 anymore, maybe if we went around and replaced follow probe arms and encoder racks and pinch wheels- it holds a 64th all day (its set tolerence) 128th and it hunts for position. They might be up for making a small drill. 25 is really a low number for a commercial nc machine.
You wouldn't need 25 hp spindles and conveyors to move 60 foot beams, and bunks with drag chains for the same, so that helps cost. Drill lines need double the length of stock floor space at least, but the length of x is not a cost factor in building (or much of one). I would go with 24 feet to allow running of tubes. That 4 feet sometimes saves big drops.

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I’ll give them a call on Monday. We never drill parts over 10-12 feet so really wold not want a 24’ machine that takes up 50’ feet of floor space. I really like the layout of the Flex CNC as the material does not move, but the head moves to the home location. Do the controlled automation drill have a tool changer or multiple spindles? For what we do I think a tool changer is a must have.


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Laser cut blanks and tapping arm? Laser will hold the 0.010" and then it is just a matter of rolling the blank by the tapping arm.

$30k could buy you a used CO2 laser.

Would you be willing to post some pictures of your current set up? Our shop sounds like it does very similar work as far as material types and processes (lots of drilled/counterbored holes).

kb0thn said:

Laser cut blanks and tapping arm? Laser will hold the 0.010" and then it is just a matter of rolling the blank by the tapping arm.

$30k could buy you a used CO2 laser.

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I don’t think that’s practical, we are talking about tap drill holes for a #6-#10 in brass and stainless.


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ShaunM said:

Would you be willing to post some pictures of your current set up? Our shop sounds like it does very similar work as far as material types and processes (lots of drilled/counterbored holes).

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Here are some parts we are running now




I’m in the process of rebuilding the y axis table so that the conveyor and linear positioner travel with the vise which will remove some flex.


The part in the drawing is 1/2 x 1-1/2 stainless bar. The holes are counter bored for a #8. There is a second part that has the same pattern but is tapped 8-32

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It seems like a 1 axis run-out table/gauge somehow attached to one side of a Brdigeport with a DRO for Y axis moves would serve you very well.
Actually - I guess the X axis on the readout would be hooked to the sliding gauge. (just not the Bridgeport)

I kind'a doubt that this is a std product anywhere, but I'm sure that you could git that custom built at a tooling shop near you for well within your stated budget, and have little to no concerns for maintenance and whatnot.

If you wanted to git a bit fancier, then you could even make the runout/gauge full CNC by just adding a cam follower style rack/pinion set-up.

Another step up might be to fetch a Haas mill, and have the gauge hooked up to the B axis, and then - provided that the run-out table was affixed to the mill table, you could even circ interp with the mill or whatnot... and have tool cnage operation. In that case - you would need to set your RAPID rate for Y very low at min.

Or, maybe better would be to fetch a traveling column mill (not sure what all is out there for that app?) and again - use the B axis for the gauge, and then the Y movements would not be a concern.


EDIT:

That looks like a nice set-up that you have there now!
Maybe you want something nicer - I understand, but still, that's not a bad starter cell!


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Think Snow Eh!
Ox

That's a neat set up. I've played around with some designs for building a machine with a fixed bed and traveling head for X/Y. We typically work in lengths from 6'-13' but have done some parts up to 27' long so I was thinking something around 24'. Again, just drilling and counterboring so it wouldn't need to be overly rigid like would be needed for machining. Currently we just push the parts across a knee mill table and work to a scribe line. A traveling head with DRO would be quite the improvement in accuracy and safety.
Keep us posted if you find something that will work!

Whetstone said:

I’ll give them a call on Monday. We never drill parts over 10-12 feet so really wold not want a 24’ machine that takes up 50’ feet of floor space. I really like the layout of the Flex CNC as the material does not move, but the head moves to the home location. Do the controlled automation drill have a tool changer or multiple spindles? For what we do I think a tool changer is a must have.

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ours is a standard 3 spindle machine, one on each flange and a web unit. Ours is also pre tool changer days, they were designing the changer when we got ours, honestly not sure if it would have paid for itself yet. Morse taper and it drills all one size then tells you to change bit(s) for the next size. It saws to length on last sequence.
The flex drill is tied to flex arm tapping people, so I would trust that for tapping as option too. having a rigid tap drill line would be cool (maybe not profitable) but cool. tiger stop did some work with pirhana for a single axis punch line retro fit thing. It would be cheaper- but you would have to trust tigerstop interface into your drill- Tiger stops are fast and accurate, but interface into other machines is not their strongest suit.

Ox said:

It seems like a 1 axis run-out table/gauge somehow attached to one side of a Brdigeport with a DRO for Y axis moves would serve you very well.
Actually - I guess the X axis on the readout would be hooked to the sliding gauge. (just not the Bridgeport)

I kind'a doubt that this is a std product anywhere, but I'm sure that you could git that custom built at a tooling shop near you for well within your stated budget, and have little to no concerns for maintenance and whatnot.


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Think Snow Eh!
Ox

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Isn't that a "tiger Stop" ???
Products - TigerStop

How about:
Mazak VTC-20G CNC VMC / 144" travel / Mazatrol M Plus / Loaded with options | eBay

or
1998 Komo VMC 40/144 3-Axis Milling Machine | eBay

The KOMO guys are a couple of blocks from where I work in NJ. Both machines are beasts but they could do all the work as soon as they hit the floor.

I have similar problems as you, but with bigger holes. The cheapest beam-line type option I found new was the ocean avenger. IIRC it's about 100k new. Used it's a crap shoot. Similarly, I'd like something that has a travelling x-axis and about 12" of Y. I've pondered building a machine to get what I want, but I don't have time. A huge machine is out because I don't have the power or the foundation for it.

digger doug said:

Isn't that a "tiger Stop" ???
Products - TigerStop

Click to expand...

More or less. I’m running a razor gauge on my turret drill. I like the razor gauge interface more than tiger stops which I have on one of my saws. Overall the system works, it’s just a bit too sloppy.


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