Events

Samsung Machine Tools (SMEC) is represented at this year’s Auckland EMEX exhibition by their New Zealand Agent Revolution Precision Machinery. The South Korean machine tool manufacturer is located in Gimhae City near Busan port and in 2013 moved from their existing factory into their new larger purpose built manufacturing and assembly facility in the Golden Root industrial estate.  SMEC success has been entirely due to producing high quality, durable, and accurate CNC lathes and Machining Centres for the USA and European engineering industry. Consistent delivery quality of their machines is due to operating a complete in-house manufacturing system where quality and accuracy are constantly monitored through each stage of the build process. At the SMEC factory machine shop the machine iron castings are milled then precision surface ground on large bridge type machines.  PICTURE: The Samsung factory. SMEC operates a large milling and grinding machine shop and their engineers are convinced that complete in-house control over the box guideway, carriages, and machine table precision grinding process gives accuracy and repeatability that can be difficult to consistently obtain when this high precision work is outsourced to subcontracting machine shops.  After the surface grinding and inspection process machine beds are moved to the assembly shops where mechanical components are fitted and the electronic system installed. Once the assembly process is complete all machine tools start the comprehensive testing process where electrical operation and cutting accuracy are checked and documented. The documented process provides a history of each machines assembly stages and allows the final product to be delivered to SMEC high quality standard.  This year’s SMEC range of machine tools includes slantbed CNC lathes, Vertical Lathes, Vertical Machining Centres, and Bridge Machining Centres. At the recent South Korean Machine Tool Expo SMEC had many of these machines on display and received an excellent […]

    Composite Helicopters is appearing on Stand 3056 at EMEX 2014 from 27-29 May at ASB Showgrounds, Auckland.    

        The release of the latest Mitsubishi Electric 45CF-R and 60XF laser resonators and their range of CO2 laser cutting machines has provided the sheet and plate cutting industry with a highly efficient, cost effective, and reliable laser cutting machine. The advances in Mitsubishi laser technology are aimed at improving cut surface finish and lowering operating and maintenance costs. Smooth edge cut finish allows the laser cut part to be plated or painted without the need for a secondary milling operation to clean up the rough laser cutting lines on the part edges. Removal of secondary milling cleanup operations can save considerable time and cost in component manufacturing plus reduce the overall overheads required when more processes are involved. A range of Mitsubishi 45CF-R CO2 laser cut samples from Steel and stainless will be on display at Revolution Precision Machinery EMEX stand 3073. Laser operating costs are a prime consideration for the Mitsubishi Japan based R&D team and they have been at the forefront of cost saving laser technology over the past 35 years. Mitsubishi Electric has built over 10,000 laser machines since starting production at their Japan factory in 1979. The new CF-R and XF resonators are at the leading edge of modern laser technology and offer considerable savings over many older technology laser resonators in current use. The latest Mitsubishi CO2 resonator has the lowest laser gas usage of any CO2 laser of equal power output and also one of the lowest maintenance and service costs. The overall advances in Mitsubishi laser technology with smooth edge, low laser gas use, and fast piercing have created a competitive advantage over competing brands and their technology. New Zealand Mitsubishi Electric authorised sales and service agent Revolution Precision Machinery has the full range of 4.5KW and 6KW Mitsubishi […]

  Total CNC Products and Kitamura Machinery of Japan will showcase the new Mycenter 3XG at EMEX 2014. “This will be the first time NZ industry will see the new model 3XG from Kitamura” say Rodney Oxford, Managing Director of Total CNC. We formed our relationship with Kitamura back in 1997 and sold many of the old Mycenter 3X machines especially into the toolmaking industry due to its exceptional accuracy. Over the years the 3X was replaced with the 3Xi and then the 3XiF models as technology moved and speeds got faster. The new 3XG takes things to a new level. The new 3XG is designed and manufactured by Kitamura to offer exceptional value but without compromising what the world has come to expect from the Kitamura name. All Kitamura machines are still meticulously hand scraped on all mounted surfaces to achieve Kitamura ‘TGA’ or ‘True Geometric Accuracy’. This TGA process forms the no compromise approach from Dr Akihiro Kitamura President of Kitamura Machinery says Oxford, all machines must be mechanically perfect and no geometric electronic compensation can be used on any Kitamura machine to adjust for squareness, parallelism or mechanical accuracy. One of the features of the new 3XG is the new control system designed by Kitamura and Mitsubishi. The ARUMATIC controller is as powerful as it is friendly to use. It features a huge 19″ LCD screen and all high speed machining features are included as standard. The control unit swings out at 90 degrees ensuring comfort and great viewing for the machine operator. The 3XG is designed for small to medium workpieces. It has travels of 760mm(X) x 455mm(Y) and 460mm(Z) the same as all the previous 3X models. A double contact BBT40 spindle of 15,000rpm is standard as is the 30 tool ATC. The rapid feedrates […]

Global compressed air group- Pneutech NZ, is pleased to announce the move of their key NZ distributor ; Industrial Air Systems, into the Auckland market.   Industrial Air Systems is exhibiting at EMEX 2014 on Stand 4031. Pneutech’s USA-based international president- Mr Bradley Taylor, says “Industrial Air Systems entry into the Auckland market, brings a whole new field of international expertise, a century of combined product knowledge and decades of local hands-on service experience to a very complacent industry.” Mr Taylor also says that Pneutech subsidiary members such as Industrial Air Systems, “bring to the market the unique combination of huge global resources and buying power, yet the personal service of a locally owned company and staff with a vested interest in their clients.” Industrial Air Systems’ newly appointed Auckland regional manager, Chris Redshaw, says that “the company’s primary focus is to provide a superior service solution to their clients, offering superior flexibility, superior options and superior turnaround to what is on offer currently”. With considerable experience in the compressed air and related energy industry, Chris is also “very aware of the obscure cost of inefficient compressed air systems, and how effective optimisation can save a factory thousands per annum.Says Mr Redshaw; ” Our first goal is to point out to the Auckland industry, that they now have a choice of world-class compressed air system providers, and then secondly to highlight how our extensive product knowledge and experience, could lead to substantial operational savings, both in energy and maintenance gains.” While specialising in a full range of oil-lubricated and oil-free rotary screw, stationary and portable compressors up to 400kW, Industrial Air Systems also supplies and services both specialised high pressure and gas compressors, refrigerated and desiccant dryers, gas generators, and air reticulation, to name a few areas. With a locally […]

Friction equals money wasted. With ever increasing energy costs it pay to keep an eye on the parts of your business that help it operate most efficiently. Paper mills use an average of 20% of total energy just to overcome friction . One third of all fuel energy used in passenger cars is used for the same purpose . Overall countries could save close to 1.5% of GDP by greater attention to the reduction of friction . For New Zealand that is over 3 billion dollars that could be invested in other activities, simply by working to reduce energy costs through low friction design and correct maintenance of existing plant. Since 1977 Auckland Bearing Distributors have been sticking to what we do best – supporting New Zealand industry by representing some of the best names in bearings and power transmission. We are proud suppliers of Nachi and NSK bearings, NAK oil seals, Tsubaki chain and many other famous brands. With over 15,000 stock lines and access to a world of specialty parts through our dedicated procurement service, Auckland Bearing Distributors are committed to being THE bearing and power transmission specialists in New Zealand for all sectors of industry. Auckland Bearing Distributors are proud to be presenting at 2014’s EMEX show. EMEX is New Zealand’s foremost industrial trade show and it is a great opportunity to put ourselves and the brands we represent in front of the people who are creating New Zealand’s manufacturing and engineering future. Come and see us at stand 2076 at this year’s show and let us show you how we can put our experience to work for you. 1 Holmberg et al. 2013. Tribology International 2 Holmberg et al. 2012. Tribology International 3 Jost. 2005. Proceedings of World Tribology Congress  

 PICTURE: The UR5 from Universal Robots with the Control Box and Teach Pendant. Design Energy, appearing on Stand 2075, says to remain competitive engineering companies are constantly looking for ways to reduce the cost of producing parts. Some are spending significant amounts money on larger capacity machines, specialised tooling and CAM software which will optimise cycle times. In many cases shaving seconds off a cycle time is celebrated as a win. But three times a day, the machine stops for 15 to 30 minutes while the operator is at smoko or lunch. Most engineering companies running CNC Machining Centres would ask themselves at some point; what is the cost/benefit in automating the loading of the machine? A bar feed on a CNC Lathe is a cheap way to automate the machine loading process, and this has proved to be a ‘no-brainer’ for those application able to apply it. But what about all those other applications a bar cannot be applied to? A 6-axis robot is a great solution for these applications. So why isn’t everyone doing it? The short answer is that the technology is still catching up. Currently most robots are difficult to program and this programming time (up to 60 minutes for a simple loading operation) means the robot can only be economically applied to large runs of 1000 or more parts. In many New Zealand machine shops the batch sizes are more like 5 – 50 parts. Spending an hour programming a robot to load 5 parts does not make sense. Universal Robots, from Denmark focused on this issue when designing their latest robots, the UR5 and UR10. With this in mind they developed affordable, flexible robots which can be programmed to load a CNC Machine in 5 – 10 minutes. The programming time has been slashed […]

Following the introduction of the Vortex high-efficiency area-clearance strategy in PowerMILL 2014 last September, Delcam’s new roughing strategy has now been added to the FeatureCAM, PartMaker and Delcam for SolidWorks CAM systems. Delcam will be appearing on Stand 3075 at EMEX 2014 with its new Vortex range. A video showing the benefits of using Vortex in FeatureCAM to program a HAAS machine can be seen atÊwww.delcam.tv/vortexhaas Vortex gives the fastest safe metal removal from solid carbide tooling, in particular designs that give deeper cuts by using the full flute length as the cutting surface. It can be used for two- and three-axis roughing, three-plus-two-axis area clearance and for rest machining. It gives benefits when machining all types of materials, including titanium, tool steel and alloys such as Inconel. Vortex produces toolpaths with a controlled engagement angle and so maintains the optimum cutting conditions for the toolpath that would normally be possible only for the straight-line moves. As a result, higher feed rates are possible so the cutting time will be shorter, while cutting will be undertaken at a more consistent volume-removal rate and at a constant feedrate, so protecting the machine. The constant feedrate achieved with Vortex is a fundamental difference from other high-speed roughing techniques. Trials at Delcam have shown that this approach is more reliable as it can often be difficult to predict exactly how machine tools will react to changing feedrates. Vortex also uses a minimum radius parameter, calculated to make sure that the machine tool can keep up the cutting feedrate in corners and, more generally, for any non-straight part of the toolpath. This makes the cutting process more predictable since the machine should run at the programmed feedrate throughout and not slow down in the way that it could on other kinds of area-clearance toolpath. […]