Targeted at the carbide industry for grinding components such as punch forms, the latest Okamoto UPZ 315Li high speed CNC surface grinding machines have up to 100m/min feed rate.

Targeted at the carbide industry for grinding components such aspunch forms, the latest Okamoto UPZ 315Li high speed CNC surfacegrinding machines with up to 100m/min feed rate are able toproduce punch type components up to eight times faster thantraditional optical profile grinding methods. Available from 600Centre in Shepshed, the UPZ uses linear motor drives for thetable with linear glass scales to provide precise closed-looppositioning. With the new 4.2kW drive system, the grinding feedrate is totally programmable up to 100m/min through the Fanuc18iMB system.

Central to the machine design is the placement ofthe dual linear drive system which is set on the vertical planeeach side of a tennon section that runs the length of theunderside of the table.

This configuration overcomes any forcesthat could be created by the linear drive and thus eliminates anytendency for table lift or pull-down during the grinding process.This action would not only reduce the maintenance of grindingsize and the holding of geometric tolerances, but would also leadto bearing surface wear on the table.

The table design alsoeliminates effects of thermal growth generated from the hightable speed and any heat generated by the high power drivesystem.

The main wheel head has a 3.7kW AC motor and maximumwheel size of 200mm with a surface speed of 6,000m/min.

Thewheelhead assembly is attached to the main bed casting andreaches the floor which improves rigidity.

The wheel to tabledimension is 400 mm, longitudinal table travel is 280mm and crosstravel is 170mm.

The magnetic chuck size is 175mm by 105mm.

Themachine control software is able to accommodate the grinding of aseries of 'family' parts of various sizes using a gridreference style tabulation of the magnetic chuck surface inconjunction with program positional and size data.

By using atouch trigger probe, higher levels of datum position for formgrinding can be made in order to accommodate high accuracyrequirements.