Walter Helitronic Tool Grinding Developments Make Further Improvements To Tool Productivity
Körber Schleifring UK of Honiley has announced a series of new enhancements to further improve the efficiency and effectiveness of its range of Walter Helitronic Power and Vision CNC tool grinders: a high-speed, high- frequency spindle; an automated work table; and additional solutions as part of the Walter Helitronic Tool Studio software.
Designed especially to meet the demands of grinding tools with brazed inserts, such as PCD tooling, in a single set-up, the new high-speed spindle is ideally suited to grinding pockets for PCD inserts and applications using small grinding wheels.
Likewise designed to offer users added flexibility in production, the new automated work table is provided in different variants – and can be combined with steady rest/tailstock systems - to suit the task in hand:
- As a manual slide
- As an automatic (CNC-controlled) slide
- As two manual slides, and
- As a manual and an automatic (CNC-controlled) slide.
The travelling steady rest designed for the production of long tools can also be used in conjunction with an automatic loading system.
On the software side, the latest version of the renowned Walter Helitronic Tool Studio system now offers further ‘plug-in' options for enhanced speed and accuracy of tool production and re-sharpening.
For example, the new Feedrate Optimiser capitalises on Tool Studio's intricate knowledge of grinding moves and wheel model as well as tool simulation to calculate instantaneous grinding wheel and machine spindle loads, to precisely set optimum feed rates.
At every point, the feed rates are set using user-specified wheel load and actual wheel load – low wheel load actions are therefore made faster and, importantly, moves that exceed desired wheel loads are slowed down. In some cases – especially with complicated tools – time savings of 40 per cent or more are possible.
Tool Studio's new Tool Balancer functionality eliminates the headache often encountered when high-speed machining with asymmetric tools such as unequally indexed end mills.
The resulting unbalanced force can, for example, lead to chatter vibrations, gouging, loss of part accuracy and uneven tool wear plus, of course, excessive load on machine bearings. Balanced tools have longer life, produce better quality surfaces and reduce wear on their ‘parent' machines.
Tool Balancer analyses the mass of the tool and applies an automatic balancing. The Helitronic operator chooses his own balancing strategy, for example lengthening the flute or deepening the core of selected teeth to perfectly balance the tool, without compromising the original cutting geometries – including unequal indexing/helix.
SOURCE: Körber Schleifring UK