What would be the ideal setup for mass production for this part?

Philipraposo1982 · Apr 3, 2020

Hi everyone,

see image for part drawing. Assuming this part is mostly completed and the only thing required is the groove, what would be the best way to machine this? what specific machine would you use and why? Budge for equipment is max budget 500,000 CAD.

I need to produce at least 50,000 parts a year. Any thoughts?

Thanks in advance,

Phil

Limy Sami · Apr 3, 2020

What's the material?

Finegrain · Apr 3, 2020

Philipraposo1982 said:
Hi everyone,

see image for part drawing. Assuming this part is mostly completed and the only thing required is the groove, what would be the best way to machine this? what specific machine would you use and why? Budge for equipment is max budget 500,000 CAD.

I need to produce at least 50,000 parts a year. Any thoughts?

Thanks in advance,

Phil

It's way worse to have these "mostly completed" then try to mass-produce them by loading one at a time. Better to make them complete from bar stock with a Swiss-style CNC lathe.

But, if it has to be a 2-step process, I would look at a CNC lathe with a robot for loading and unloading.

Regards.

Mike

gbent · Apr 3, 2020

I think if the parts were free without the groove it would be cheaper to throw them away and make them in one operation on a screw machine or bar feeder. Providing, of course, they aren't some stupid expensive material.

TeachMePlease · Apr 3, 2020

As everyone else said, I'd rather make them from scratch on a Swiss. Make five per chucking... Drill through all 5 of them at a time, profile, cutoff, profile the next one while the sub spindle is facing off the first one. Depending on material, you're looking at a sub 6 second part, complete, with no issues like concentricity or perpendicularity of groove to ID/OD. 50K x 6 = 300K. 300K/3600 = 83 1/3 hrs. 50K a year? Nah, 50K in a week of 2 shifts. Then you can make all sorts of other nifty things on your Swiss.

Or, if I had to kludge something together, I'd be looking at something like an Omniturn with a spring stop, and some automated way to load... But that's not going to be easy to setup reliably. There's not a lot of lip to chuck on to hold that part while profiling the groove. That's going to make it difficult to remove material quickly, and to ensure that the centerline of the part is parallel to the centerline of the spindle.

BROTHERFRANK · Apr 3, 2020

If you can't make the part complete, something like this from Takisawa can be very efficient:

YouTube

Milland · Apr 3, 2020

If it was me, I'd buy a 25mm Swiss and a small robot loader, along with a "shake pan" to orient the part ready to be grabbed by the robot to fit over a spigoted mandrel that's permanently in S1. Use S2 with a pressing mandrel to clamp and match RPM drive them.

I understand saying "just make them over", but if nothing else the setup above gives you an excuse to learn how to integrate a robot into a manufacturing "cell" (along with the shaker/orienter) and saves buying the bar stock.

A couple grooving tools (rougher and finisher), and you're good - grab part, groove, robot tosses the part onto the chute and grabs the next one. When project is done you've learned something and have a nice cell ready for future work.

motion guru · Apr 5, 2020

TeachMePlease said:
As everyone else said, I'd rather make them from scratch on a Swiss. Make five per chucking... Drill through all 5 of them at a time, profile, cutoff, profile the next one while the sub spindle is facing off the first one. Depending on material, you're looking at a sub 6 second part, complete, with no issues like concentricity or perpendicularity of groove to ID/OD. 50K x 6 = 300K. 300K/3600 = 83 1/3 hrs. 50K a year? Nah, 50K in a week of 2 shifts. Then you can make all sorts of other nifty things on your Swiss.

Or, if I had to kludge something together, I'd be looking at something like an Omniturn with a spring stop, and some automated way to load... But that's not going to be easy to setup reliably. There's not a lot of lip to chuck on to hold that part while profiling the groove. That's going to make it difficult to remove material quickly, and to ensure that the centerline of the part is parallel to the centerline of the spindle.

we built up an omniturn with an auto feeder for parts similar to this about 10 years ago, it has been running 2 shifts a day, 5 days a week since then and rarely misses a beat!

Spruewell · Apr 5, 2020

Is there a good reason to be receiving these mostly done? If you can get the material in bar form, this is a super simple one-op lathe job. Tool it up, load the bar and let er rip. Come back in an hour or so, load another bar and start packaging.

rcoope · Apr 5, 2020

Or make them in plastic by injection moulding. We do need to know the material...

D.D.Machine · Apr 5, 2020

50K sounds like a lot but its a really simple part and like others have talked about , If you can get the material in bar form for it I would think it would be cheapest just to job it out and let someone else run them ,,

your only looking at a couple weeks a year worth of production and by the time you pay floor space, depreciation , and all the overhead that comes with a machine it would be cheaper to have someone already setup run them.

I would more start by looking at having a outside shop make them then if the numbers are still not working do the numbers to bring the parts in house. Its hard to justify how one machine running 2 weeks a year can be more profitable than 5 or 6 machine being ran by one operator year around . The setup on a part like that would be fast to do so it might be better to order like 5k or 10K at a time and not have your money laying there for a year at a time .

camscan · Apr 5, 2020

Have a word with Dan ASM.

Philipraposo1982 · Apr 6, 2020

sorry guys, I forgot to give detail about material. A2 material hardened 56Hrc

michiganbuck · Apr 6, 2020

QT: [I need to produce at least 50,000 parts a year. Any thoughts?]
Guess I would send the job out for bids for manufacturing not altering for the first year and see if purchase of machines needed could be justified. The close sizes .0005 and the part being that hard, and needing so much work it may be tough to alter them at a reasonable cost. Likely need considerable time machining with carbide and grinding , or edm so taking considerable time.

EDM guys how long would that take?

Guest · Apr 6, 2020

Can you harden the parts after machining?

DanASM · Apr 6, 2020

I would bang em out on a $500 Brown and Sharpe. Save yourself $499,500. I make parts like this regularly.

Omniturns are great for 2nd op and I should have 1 or 2 but I dont.

Swiss it out like TeachMePlease says. The machine would cost a lot though.

Billtodd · Apr 6, 2020

IF you can hold the part in a collet (given relatively hard part) then a Hardinge HC and a good operator will be pretty quick : No doors to open , easy manual part loading .

(We're still using a couple of HC's (we had half a dozen) for rapid production/2nd op on small parts - nothing quick IMHO.

3t3d · Apr 6, 2020

These kind of questions remind of this guy's channel..
Lots of "inspiration" looking at these videos..

YouTube

Nerdlinger · Apr 6, 2020

I would try to make them out of bar stock and then send them out for hardening...A2 is very stable so you may be able to hold the tolerances you need...I’m not sure about the .0005” though. I would do them in a Swiss machine and face, spot, turn, groove, cutoff in the front spindle and then spot / drill in the back spindle. Probably 20 seconds or so in my world. A Swiss machine like a Tsugami or Citizen with a magazine barfeed would probably cost about $250,000 (USD) new.

I also have a Takisawa with gantry loader that has worked well, so I would probably say what BrotherFrank recommended would be nice if the parts just need to be grooved. Although I have no experience machining stuff harder than 30HRC so what do I know.

Good luck!

ostie01 · Apr 7, 2020

You will get into trouble with this job.

This is the kind of work that no companies will want to bid on.

No chuck or collet will hold this part. You have about 0.070 to hold the part and it is hardened A2. Damage parts, damage tools, and collets.

And 50,000 parts in a couple of weeks, BS This is not alu

What would be the ideal setup for mass production for this part?

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