CASE STUDIES

Automotive Supplier

Machining of Castings

This customer was having problems with holding parts in their fixtures throughout the machining cycle. The fixtures used hydraulic clamping but were only pressurized between cycles using a manual system. Leaks in the system would cause the clamps to lose pressure therefore causing inconsistency in machining.

CNC Solutions helped redesign the fixture to aid in part loading, part seated verification, and integration of a hydraulic rotary union for live hydraulics. The machine was a dual pallet system with one operation being done on each pallet. We integrated a main 16-port rotary union on the machine which fed 8 circuits to each pallet. This allowed full rotation of the fixture pallets and main pallet table. A PLC based control on the hydraulic pump system communicated with the machine tool to automate the clamping and unclamping of the fixtures, rotation of the pallet table, monitoring pressure at each circuit, part seated detection, and fault detection. This system increased the volume of parts made, virtually eliminated scrap, and reduced operator fatigue.