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Our team was in Dallas, Texas, for SolidWorks World 2019. This was a great
event. If you weren't able to make it out I highly recommend making the trip next
year. There were over six thousand in attendance, to sharpen their SolidWorks
skills, and learn about new technologies and manufacturing. We had the opportunity
to be part of the Solidworks shop floor, with our 1100M+ mill, and a 15 L Slant
Pro lathe, on-site, working through four different parts and nine operations. In
addition to our machines, there was a five axis mill and a large CNC lathe, and
all the needed inspection equipment to ensure that the parts all met their
specifications.
We all worked together to make the components for a serpentine drive belt
kit on a small-block engine. We were tasked with making two power steering
brackets, a tension bracket, and the water pump pulley. With the quick change pallet
system we built for the show, it was really a great way to demonstrate how
our machines can help you with your quick prototyping needs. On the Tormach
mill here, we're actually running several different parts and what's cool about it
is we're using quick change tooling, and fixtures. So we can machine multiple
different parts for that system. What's neat about it is they're using
quick fixturing years so on the Mitee- Bites we can actually hold the stock and
then we go to flip it over and machine the other side. We're using these
compression pins to hold the part successfully. What this does is it allows
you to make multiple parts really quick and easy, but be able to switch out the
programs to maintain productivity. One of the cool things about these two machines
you see so far is we're actually controlling them through IQMS. So if we
look up here on the back of this Matsuura, you can see the antenna
collecting the data wirelessly to the terminal. All of these machines are using
the IQMS workflow process schedule, so they have the ability to track and
understand how fast we're making parts. The runtime on the Matsuura is about
three hours. These are significantly faster because
they're a smaller parts. Because we can swap these out, we can make multiple
parts really quick, and easy. On this lathe here, we're actually making this
front pulley, we're making the two setups or OPs, then we come back and drill the
holes over on that machine, you may have saw that picture. So we start by machining
the part like this, and we machine in the profile, and then we flip it around in a
fixture, and then we machine the outside. What's nice about this machine, just like
the Tormach mill, is I have the ability to quickly change the chuck, so I can
machine both sides quickly. So if you look at this here, here's the chuck with
the fixture, you can pop the part on after operation one's been done and we
can machine this outside face. So it works really well, it's really fast.
Again this is connected to IQMS, so we have the ability to pull data as the
parts are completed off the machine.
We put toos in this and that's we bring it over here.
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