CMZ TA20-YS gantry loaded turning centre offering greater flexibility

The new CMZ TA20-YS series of gantry loaded turning centre has now been launched to offer greater flexibility to the end user. To tell us more, MTD spoke with Mr Keith Howell, Director of CMZ UK.

Mr Howell told MTD: ‘This machine is tremendously flexible as it can be hand loaded, gantry loaded or even bar loaded with a barfeed unit at the side of the machine. The parts can then be removed by hand or via a parts catcher or a stocker unit that is also on the machine. It’s a big misconception that gantry loaded machines are for high volume production. The unit on this CMZ machine has been designed to be easy to set up and changeover.’

‘Most companies will run this machine with hand loading by day as subcontractors have a diverse mix of jobs. However, with the gantry system, those companies can hold the longer running jobs back to the end of the shift and then run them unmanned overnight.’

For high production runs, the CMZ TA20-YS is available with a high capacity barfeed and at the other end the machine has a stacker with 14 pallets to accept a plentiful supply of billets. Whilst running, the CMZ has in-cycle tool monitoring, coolant monitoring and the machine is eco-friendly as it will shut down when the production run is completed.

All aspects of the machine are fully integrated, as Mt Howell continues: ‘We designed and built the gantry unit at our facility in Spain and all the software has been written by our engineers. There is no programming with the gantry. It is all pictorial, all you have to do is feed it some parameters such as the length of the raw and finished part and the depth of chuck saws and so on. From here, the program will pre-determine parameters to simplify operation. The software within the Fanuc control is pictorially driven and this creates ease of use for the end user.’

As for the general specification of the TA20-YS, it is provided with a 65mm diameter bar capacity, an integrated spindle motor with 22kW and 15kW on the sub-spindle. The tool turret has 12 stations that can be driven with the powerful 12kW motor whilst the Y-axis is particularly generous with a travel of -50 to 60mm. The high speed and power of the driven tooling has been a revelation for manufacturers conducting high speed machining of light alloys whilst the torque is also suitable for heavier and more robust metal cutting.