Micromachining in a Big Way
With the acquisition of a new CNC Swiss-type lathe, this company can now bid on small, complex parts it wasn’t able to in the past, while also slashing setup and cycle times.
Darryl Sienicki says the LNS Tryton bar feeder integrated with the Cincom L12VII CNC Swiss lathe excels at handling small-diameter barstock, accepting bar lengths as long as 165 inches with diameters of 0.039 to 0.500 inch.
I recently visited Sussex Wire in Easton, Pennsylvania. They specialize in machining highly engineered parts for applications in the medical, electronics, semiconductor and automotive markets, among others. They had recently stepped up from a standard Swiss-type lathe to a new L12VII CNC machine from Marubeni Citizen-Cincom, and I wanted to learn about their experience for an article on micromachining that appeared in Modern Machine Shop.
Once Darryl Sienicki, senior tooling designer, had climbed the learning curve and grown comfortable with operating the new CNC machine, he and his colleagues found that a number of benefits had begun to accrue:
- The ability to perform both turning and milling
- Machining parts complete using the main and subspindles
- Reduced cycle times
- Savings from being able to buy small-diameter barstock
- The ability to operate the lathe unmanned, and eventually to conduct lights-out machining
In addition, faster setups allowed Sussex Wire to produce prototypes and small-batch orders with greater ease than before, and they are now able to bid on parts that had once gone into the “no quote” folder. Learn more about the subject in our Micromachining Zone, and also about the tooling required in this article by Sandvik Coromant.
Sussex Wire manufactures highly engineered parts for markets including medical, semiconductor, automotive, energy, aerospace and the military, among others. Here is a selection of the products it makes.
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