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Ocean Cincom Expands Citizen-Miyano's Automated Machining Applications

Story added 25 January 2012.

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New to the UK is a range of very compact high precision CNC chucking lathes under the Ocean Cincom brand with fully integrated automation that can be easily customised to suit the application. With the development of the production process for the customer, each application of machine and automation can be packaged to satisfy volume hungry or batched families of similar components taking advantage of the combined production expertise of both Citizen Machinery and Miyano Machinery.

Marketed and supported by Citizen Machinery UK of Bushey, Watford, the Ocean Cincom GN and RL ranges of machines complements the bar production based capabilities of Citizen CNC sliding head turn-mill centres having a maximum capacity of 35 mm and the Miyano fixed-head turning centres and cell-based production units with a capacity up to 64 mm diameter.

Here Ocean Cincom’s ultra-compact RL chucking/collet machines starting with a 10 mm capacity and requiring only 1 m² of floor space complete with component bowl feed and the high speed GN series with one or two spindles having a 45 mm chucking capacity with linear tool platens complement the two established bar machine types of Citizen and Miyano by providing an automated second or additional operation capability.

At first thought, with the whole concept behind Citizen and Miyano’s focus on single-hit, single-cycle production solutions, Ocean Cincom would seem to cut across this technology but according to Citizen Machinery Managing Director Geoff Bryant this is far from the case: “Ocean Cincom machines have been developed to incorporate features drawn from Citizen and Miyano’s bar technology to work from blanks, castings, forgings and pre-machined components. For instance, those parts requiring further operations after heat treatment,” he says. “Due to the specialised applications that could be involved, each machine will be customised around the integration of modular automation units to maximise productivity and unmanned production demands,” he adds.

Prior to 2007 both Citizen, which has used the Cincom name as an international brand and grew to hold the world leading position in CNC sliding head machine technology originally developed from meeting the demands of its watch making and precision instruments business and Miyano, with its fixed head turn-milling capability, operated as two totally independent companies. Indeed, the Ocean brand was launched by former company owner Tom Miyano some two decades earlier to separate the branding away from the existing Miyano bar and chucking lathe market and take advantage of growing the business by developing the specialist high volume, high accuracy machining of the likes of mini-bearings, computer hard drives, video equipment and automotive turbo charging.

In order not to confuse the issue between the two product areas Miyano initially limited the Ocean brand to the Japanese market. However, since 2007, the time when Citizen Holdings took an initial 29 per cent stake in Miyano Machinery Inc of Japan, both Citizen and Miyano have become ever closer with complementary technologies and production concepts.

From that point both companies began working closely together to develop mutually complementary product lines and transforming pertinent technologies including control and software expertise. By the time Citizen Holdings were ready to enter into a share exchange agreement to make Miyano a wholly-owned subsidiary in September 2010, and enlarged the Ocean Cincom range that had already been developed combining citizen’s non-sliding head product line with Miyano’s Ocean line up and all were being built at Citizen’s modern factory in Karuizawa, Japan.

Due to production demands for high precision small components in Asia, America and parts of Europe the Ocean Cincom range achieved immediate success and particularly in the electronics, fuel injection, bearing, medical and fluid power sectors with high demands for consistent production, strict quality and ultra-tight cost margins. And, with each machine in the GN and RL ranges having a very compact floor footprint, which incorporated the automation for unmanned running, this has proven of major importance to customers ramping-up production and requiring multiple machine installations.

The current Ocean Cincom RLO1 and RLO3 machines were originally developed as the micro-machining bar fed range under the Citizen RL Series having a single spindle with a linear platen and built upon a single rigid base. As a chucking machine, the RL01 now carries a bowl feed and the RL03 a pick-and-place gantry for component handling. Fitted with a 10 mm capacity collet or diaphragm chuck the RLO1 has a 1.1 kW, 6,000 revs/min spindle and carries four tools on its platen. Maximum component length is 50 mm with an x-axis stroke of 170 mm and Z-axis of 80 mm.

Like the RLO1, the 40 mm capacity RLO3 has a maximum component length of 50 mm and is able to carry five tools on its platen base which has strokes of 180 mm in X and 200 mm in Z. The 2.2 kW spindle has a maximum speed of 8,000 revs/min and the fully integrated two-axis gantry loader with double gripper arrangement has a 3.5 sec operational cycle feeding the component in and out of the machine via an independent double track conveyor. Such is the compact design of the RLO3 that it requires a floor area of 700 mm by 1,480 mm.

It is the GN models that seem to be creating the greatest interest in the European market with five variants, the GN-3200, GN-3200W, GN-4, GN-4200 and GN-4200W each with linear platens.

The GN-3200 and GN-3200W are single- and twin-spindle variants with high speed gantry loading and in-and out pallet stockers. The rigidly designed machines can carry five tools on each platen to serve each 40 mm capacity, 2.2 kW, 8,000 revs/min spindle.

In the two independent spindle ‘W’ version the programmable gantry system enables the machine to duplicate the same cycle at each spindle or perform first, and through the co-ordinated movement of a component turn-around device, provide a second successive operational cycle to create a fully completed part.

Meanwhile, the Ocean Cincom GN-4 is a single 40 mm dia, 8,000 revs/min, 3.7 kW spindle machine with two-axis (250 mm in X and Z travel) platen that is able to carry six tools. With non-contact encoder positioning and rigid base optimised to minimise any thermal influence, this machine is designed for ultra-high accuracy finishing cycles.

The GN-4200 self-contained turning cell is reckoned by Citizen Machinery UK to be of significant interest for European component production with its 45 mm collet chuck and 80 mm maximum machining length. The machine has been heavily influenced by Citizen and Miyano’s strategic machine tool development engineers as a high precision chucking lathe providing very accurate concentricity to datum features of a component serviced by fully integrated high speed programmable automatic gantry loading and unloading. The 8,000 revs/min, 3.7 kW spindle and high speed gantry that runs at 154 m/min is able to achieve a load/unload time of under six seconds.

Available as a single spindle machine but like the existing smaller capacity GN-3200W cell, is also available as a twin-spindle ‘W’ machine with one or two saddles. There is also a choice of integrated multiple pallet systems for extended unmanned running cycles.

The platen-based tooling platform is able to accommodate up to five tools and like in the smaller GN-3200W, this platen arrangement is able to carry out additional functions involving ganged or combination tools and high speed driven tools.

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