Leader provides further Lean Manufacturing support

The Control international trade event for quality assurance, metrology, inspection and testing was held once again at the Stuttgart Exhibition Centre, Germany earlier this year. It provided suppliers and users with a globally recognised technical event that is focused strictly on relevant issues. Exploring all pertinent theoretical aspects and offering a highly practical presentation of current worldwide offerings for useful technologies, processes, products and system solutions in the field of industrial quality assurance.

Among the latest products launched at this key event were two of the latest developments from Maprox. Both the Maprox AIR and ER range of pneumatic collet holders for automation are available in the UK and Eire from exclusive agent, Leader Chuck International. The Swiss company is renowned for providing elegant fixturing solutions for complex components, thin-walled parts, delicate geometries and other challenging products. Typical parts include gears, shafts and bearings for the automotive, watchmaking and medical industries.

Supporting the efficiency driven goals of the global manufacturing community, the new Maprox AIR chuck is also designed for automation. Combining all the advantages of the Maprox manual chucks with pneumatic clamping makes the chuck fully automation system compatible, controlled via the measuring machine.

A rotary pneumatic feed supports flexible mounting options and adjustable clamping force. With 8 mm of jaw travel the chuck opens pneumatically against spring force. Pre-tension the spring on the top cover to match application requirements. It provides perfect, repeatable inner or outer clamping with changeover times of less than 1 minute via the unique Maprox system.

At 160 mm diameter and with an ultra-low chuck body height of just 60 mm the new chuck occupies the minimum space within any automation or robot loading system. It has a flexible clamping range with the Maprox proven top jaw or pin jaw to suit the application. Interface compatibility is supported with shanks, intermediate plates, or adapters depending on the measuring machine. Further sizes will also be available in the near future

“Jaws for this new chuck can be made of steel, coated or plain aluminium, plastic and so on, to match the component being held. It is a great all-round chuck offering the famous Maprox flexibility,” states Leader Chuck International’s Managing Director, Mark Jones.

Adding to its extensive product range, the recently launched Maprox pneumatic collet holders ER16 PM and ER20 PM have been developed for automation as company CEO Adrian Zwirner, says: “We are supporting the growing shift of manufacturers following the path towards Industry 4.0 and the IoT, accessing the efficiency gains and improved productivity on offer.”

Designed to keep weight to a minimum these collet holders are manufactured from ALTEF coated aluminium and weighs less than 1 kg. In application the user can choose to pneumatically control the ER collet holder laterally or from below. The central rotary feedthrough on the bottom supports full rotation of, for example, turntables or indexing units while being controlled by the measuring machine.

The clamping pressure applied to the low height ER16 or ER20 collets is pneumatically adjustable while the specialised coating provided a hard surface that is abrasion and scratch resistant, as well as being food safe. As Adrian Zwirner explains: “The very hard ALTEF-layer is particularly abrasion-resistant, corrosion-resistant, non-sticky and has a low coefficient of friction.  The surface of the base material is converted into a ceramic layer into which Teflon is embedded.”