A P Patterns Invest in Second CMS

Formed in 1990 by Partners Paul Standen and Tony Mottram, AP Patterns manufacture and supply engineering patterns, vacuum form tools, specialist tools and sub-contract facilities for the aerospace, automotive and general engineering industries.

Late in 2008 fire completely destroyed the existing Five- Axis CNC Machining Centre in the workshops of Hyde based A P Patterns Limited. The machine had been left overnight machining a large pattern in unmanned mode, due to unforeseen circumstances a fire ensued, the rest of the workshop escaped serious damage with only the machine rendered unusable and beyond economic repair.

Paul Standen said “Once we realised our existing machine was damaged beyond repair we immediately started to look for a replacement. Our requirements were for a large capacity flexible machine centre with full five axis and high speed machining capability to machine a range of non ferrous materials including aluminium, model block and timber based materials”

A call was made to the UK subsidiary of Italian manufacturer CMS Industries, and an appointment made for the next day to discuss what CMS had to offer. Remarkably, during this first meeting and without physically viewing the machine an order was placed for a CMS Ares 3618 PX5 CNC machine centre. The machine was available on relatively short lead-time following a major European exhibition.

Speaking of their quick decision, Tony said “We chose the CMS Ares not only for it’s availability but because it was obvious to me and Paul, that more importantly, the CMS Ares machine offered many benefits and matched our requirements exactly. We were confident that long term it would deliver the capability we require to maintain or indeed improve our position within our demanding industry.”
 
CMS Ares 3618 PX5 with adaptive technology
The heart of the Ares is the rigid and innovative PX5 system with rotary B and C axis drives giving the five simultaneous movement needed for 3+2 or full five axis simultaneous machining 

Spindle is 12kW liquid cooled offering rotation speeds up to 24,000 RPM fitted with 8 position tool change facility  (can be increased to 32 if required ). The machine was supplied with the Tribos tool holding system from Schunk, this system ensures maximum rigidity and concentricity when machining at high speeds. The reinforced precision rack and pinion system ensures high positional speeds and accuracy up to 80 meters per minute for the linear travels of 3600mm (X axis) 1800mm (Y axis) 1200mm (Z axis)

 Of particular benefit for high speed machining of large patterns and tools is CMS adaptive software running within the Fanuc 31i control, this is the latest software development from CMS. Adaptive Technology enables significant increases in production as well as ease of programming and improvement of surface quality.  CMS R&D developed CMS Adaptive Technology in order to enable the CMS machines to be used at their full potential thus reducing cycle times and improving productivity. There are 10 machine mappings, which can be entered directly through a part-program: each of them is optimised for different kinds of materials and operations. Through CMS Adaptive Technology the operator/programmer will always be able to achieve the fastest possible cutting rates at the required levels of quality and accuracy by simply specifying the mapping number for the type of result required. This means that CMS machines will always be able to achieve the best possible cycle times for the work in hand giving more productivity and profit to the customer.

Second Machine
In conclusion Paul said “We are delighted with our new machine, it has integrated into our machine shop without any problems. We drive it from our existing Delcam programming software and almost from day one it has been producing the patterns, moulds and tooling required, efficiently and to the quality levels we expect. In fact we are so pleased we have just placed an order with CMS for a second five axis machine and look forward to it arriving shortly.”