NEW INTERNAL GRINDING MACHINE CUSTOMIZED FOR AEROSPACE LANDING GEAR MANUFACTURING

CNC North, Inc. offers a two-axis internal grinder customized for aerospace landing gear manufacturing applications. For the better part of 2008, CNC North worked on developing and building the revolutionary grinding machine. Key features of the grinder include:

– Granite base (bed) allows for custom machine platforms allowing machines to be built per the customer?s application and in some cases per the customer?s floor space requirements. It provides a stable platform and can be engineered and delivered in a very short time period.

– Hydrostatic slides sized per the application. This particular machine features a 48 in Z-slide and a 14 in X-slide. The dovetail design provides cost reductions in the manufacturing process while maintaining the stiffness required for grinding applications.

– Precision, four bearing ½ Micron work head adapted to accept either a three jaw chuck or a custom face plate allowing use of the customer?s existing tooling.

– Both the work head and steady rest are on a precision slide and operate manually by enabling an air bearing. This provides quick and easy adjustment of both devices and enables quick changeover for the customer?s various work parts.

– Custom Steady Rest. Various versions could be provided based on the customer?s part diameter requirements.

– Custom wheel head mounting allowing both new and existing wheel spindles to be quickly mounted during part change over.

– Pivots that operate on an air bearing allow ease in taper adjustment both for the work/steady rest assembly as well as the wheel spindle assembly.

– Custom guarding. A three-door system was designed, based on input from the end user, to accommodate their setup and gaging requirements. Dimensions were customized to allow installation in the floor space available.

– Direct feedback absolute linear scales are standard thus eliminating any thermal concerns.

CNC North teamed with their sister-company CNC Engineering, Inc (Enfield, CT) to design the Fanuc based control system. Additionally, CNC North selected Open Vision? Grind, an open architecture grind package from CNC Engineering, Inc. The system combines the reliability of the GE Fanuc control with the flexibility of an industrial PC to offer a conversational grind and dress-programming package. While CNC North?s new internal grinder uses the standard Open Vision? Grind platform, CNC Engineering?s software development team can create customized screen displays to address the needs of specific applications.

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