FAQ

The advan­ta­ges of this com­pu­ter-con­trol­led tech­no­lo­gy are the high effi­ci­en­cy of pro­duc­tion and the gre­at and always repro­du­ci­b­le pre­cis­i­on in work­pie­ce machining.

CNC machi­nes have many advan­ta­ges over manu­al pro­ces­sing. They pro­du­ce high-pre­cis­i­on results to clo­se dimen­sio­nal and shape tole­ran­ces that meet the hig­hest demands in the aero­space and auto­mo­ti­ve indus­tries, for exam­p­le. The pro­duc­tion of com­plex, mul­ti-dimen­sio­nal work­pie­ces in a sin­gle ope­ra­ti­on is also possible.

Espe­ci­al­ly high-per­for­mance machi­nes car­ry out tool chan­ges auto­ma­ti­cal­ly and moni­tor tool wear or breaka­ge. This redu­ces the need for the per­ma­nent super­vi­si­on of the sys­tems by ope­ra­tors. Ano­ther advan­ta­ge is the high level of cus­to­miza­ti­on, mea­ning that the machi­nes are tech­ni­cal­ly adapt­ed to the spe­ci­fic requi­re­ments of the user.

CNC machi­nes are used for a wide varie­ty of appli­ca­ti­ons – in the skil­led crafts and trades as well as in indus­tri­al pro­duc­tion. Depen­ding on the design and tool, they are sui­ta­ble for mil­ling, tur­ning, sawing, cut­ting (for exam­p­le ultra­so­nic cut­ting), dril­ling, engra­ving and other tasks. Num­e­rous mate­ri­als can be pro­ces­sed, inclu­ding wood and wood-based mate­ri­als, pla­s­tics and com­po­si­tes as well as various types of metal.

NC (Nume­ri­cal Con­trol) machi­nes are the pre­de­ces­sors of CNC machi­nes and, due to their out­da­ted tech­no­lo­gy, are hard­ly used any­mo­re. In NC machi­nes, the data for pro­ces­sing a work­pie­ce is stored on pun­ched cards, which are inser­ted into a pun­ched card rea­der and read out. Once the data has been read and the machi­ning pro­cess starts, NC machi­nes are litt­le fle­xi­ble, while CNC machi­nes still per­mit chan­ges and opti­miza­ti­on during the machi­ning process.

5‑axis mil­ling is the upper class of CNC mil­ling. 5‑axis machi­ning cen­ters have 5 move­ment opti­ons: in addi­ti­on to the three tra­ver­sing axes X, Y and Z, the­re are two rota­ry axes B and C (5‑axis working head, car­da­nic working head, fork head, etc.).

The dri­ve sys­tems of a CNC machi­ne are equip­ped with ball screw or line­ar dri­ves. Both have a very small cle­arance, which ensu­res high pre­cis­i­on during machi­ning. Por­tal mil­ling machi­nes often use the gan­try dri­ve. In the case of this dri­ve, two sepa­ra­te, ang­le-syn­chro­ni­zed feed motors move a com­mon dri­ve axis.

A CNC machi­ning cen­ter is a com­pu­ter-con­trol­led machi­ne capa­ble of pro­ces­sing work­pie­ces with various tools under dif­fe­rent para­me­ters accor­ding to pre­vious­ly defi­ned spe­ci­fi­ca­ti­ons. Modern machi­nes work with an inte­gra­ted mini­com­pu­ter or with an exter­nal con­trol sys­tem whe­re the requi­red pro­grams are crea­ted direct­ly via a CAD/CAM system.

A CNC machi­ne must pro­vi­de the opti­mum match for the pro­duc­tion requi­re­ments of a com­pa­ny. This appli­es to the mate­ri­al to be pro­ces­sed, the dimen­si­ons of the work­pie­ces and the func­tion­a­li­ties. Equal­ly important is the high qua­li­ty of the indi­vi­du­al com­pon­ents, as the­se are some­ti­mes expo­sed to enorm­ous loads during ope­ra­ti­on. The soft­ware should be easy and intui­ti­ve to use in order to mini­mi­ze the amount of trai­ning requi­red. The more sophisti­ca­ted a sys­tem and the soft­ware used are, the more important is the avai­la­bi­li­ty of a high-qua­li­ty trai­ning pro­gram. Com­pa­ti­bi­li­ty with various CAD soft­ware solu­ti­ons is also significant.

Typi­cal­ly, fle­xi­bi­li­ty domi­na­tes the order situa­ti­on, as the­re is a con­stant alter­na­ti­on bet­ween smal­ler quan­ti­ties and series parts. A 5‑axis CNC sys­tem, spe­ci­fi­cal­ly desi­gned for the trade, offers high repeat accu­ra­cy, short set-up times, ease of ope­ra­ti­on, a wide ran­ge of machi­ning opti­ons in terms of mate­ri­al or geo­me­try, plus excel­lent mil­ling results and a con­sis­t­ent­ly high out­put, even under con­sidera­ble mecha­ni­cal loads.

Car­da­nic mounts are swi­vel mounts usual­ly atta­ched to cars and other vehic­les like dro­nes, whe­re tri­pods or other came­ra mounts would be inac­cep­ta­ble due to vibra­ti­ons or other unex­pec­ted movements.

In CNC mil­ling machi­nes, the simul­ta­neous move­ment of the B and C axes cau­ses the posi­ti­on chan­ge of the mil­ling spind­le. Both axes (B, C) pos­sess a pre-stres­sed two-stage gear dri­ve. The gear units are cle­arance-free. The pre-stress gene­ra­ted by the spring ele­ments gua­ran­tees zero cle­arance of the gear units up to the maxi­mum per­mis­si­ble wear (ser­vice life). Ser­vo­mo­tors with an inte­gra­ted abso­lu­te posi­ti­on mea­su­ring sys­tem dri­ve the NC axes. 

Ultra­so­nic cut­ting is a tech­ni­cal pro­cess for cut­ting mate­ri­als wit­hout pres­su­re using a bla­de exci­ted by ultra­sound. The essen­ti­al advan­ta­ges of ultra­so­nic cut­ting are fast and varia­ble cuts, clean cut sur­faces and redu­ced down­ti­mes for clea­ning the blades. Ultra­so­nic blades are available with a cut­ting depth of 40 — 180 mm and a cut­ting width of up to 400 mm. We fre­quent­ly use this pro­cess in the avia­ti­on sec­tor for for­mat­ting honey­comb material.

No ide­al “stan­dard solu­ti­on” exists. The choice of the CAM soft­ware depends on seve­ral indi­vi­du­al aspects: on the one hand on the sel­ec­ted machi­ne series, on the other hand on the type of parts to be manu­fac­tu­red. Befo­re the decis­i­on is made, we recom­mend a “live test” on site at Rei­chen­ba­cher befo­re the decis­i­on is made in order to inspect the sur­faces in detail after pro­ces­sing and to ensu­re that the soft­ware meets your requirements.

The sel­ec­tion of the opti­mum CAM soft­ware depends on various fac­tors, inclu­ding the spe­ci­fic requi­re­ments of the pro­duc­tion pro­cess and your experience.

Along with the gene­ral infor­ma­ti­on about your com­pa­ny, you should sta­te the pro­duct name (machi­ne type) and the machi­ne num­ber as well as brief­ly descri­be the type of fault and the error mes­sa­ge that has occurred.