Production times almost halved

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industrial

Production times almost halved

Contract manufacturer is reducing production times with the Heckert five-axis machining centre with turning function

“Only the best is good enough for our customers,” says Karl Kordik, who is responsible for the area of contract manufacturing at Neuson Hydrotec GmbH in Linz. With the new Starrag HEC 800 X5 MT machining centre, his machining team is even able to machine complex housing with numerous holes at different angles with maximum precision – in a single clamping position and in half the time. The “best” is therefore also a clear advantage for Neuson Hydrotec.

Neuson Hydrotec GmbH in Linz is a company in which mechanical engineering, mechatronics and hydraulics are intertwined in many ways (see box). With around 50 employees, contract manufacturing is the largest business unit. Walter Füreder, who is one of the two GmbH managing directors responsible for this division, describes it as essential for the entire company: “We generate around half of our turnover with our contract work. Twenty per cent of this involves doing groundwork for other business units, while we achieve the rest with leading companies in the plastics recycling, railway and mechanical engineering sectors.”

Sophisticated components, powerful machines

The central topic in contract manufacturing is machining, and various CNC turning and grinding machines as well as several machining centres with a pallet pool are available for this. The highlight is the HEC 800 5X MT five-axis machining centre, which was put into operation in May 2024. This investment was triggered by a complex component for a plastics recycling machine that requires turning and milling operations, and in which numerous holes have to be drilled at different angles. In this recycling plant, the used plastics are heated to around 400 degrees after shredding. A spindle presses the liquefied mass through a plate with tens of thousands of holes about 0.2 mm in size – called a laser filter – which retains any contaminants. These are removed by a permanently rotating scraper disc. The cleaned plastic flows onwards to a cooling station, and is then cut into pellets. Neuson Hydrotec manufactures the housing for this laser filter. It contains intricate contours and numerous channels, through which first the contaminated and then the cleaned plastic flows. “One hole runs through the entire component, and other channels meet at a certain angle,” says Karl Kordik, explaining details that are difficult to produce. High precision is particularly important for the latter. This is because, for fluidic reasons, the channels must not be offset when they meet. “We manage this because we achieve a positioning accuracy per hole of less than 0.03 mm,” adds Kordik. “Although that doesn’t sound particularly difficult, the value corresponds to only a few μm per axis if the holes are drilled at 45 degrees.”

The surfaces of the holes are also of decisive importance for a smooth flow. That is why they are sanded and polished by hand. The finer the surfaces coming from the machine, the less reworking is required.

“ We want to clamp components with a length of 1100 mm, and drill through them completely with an appropriate tool.”

Karl Kordik, Sales Manager Neuson Hydrotec

Bed extension for deep holes

Another argument in favour of the Heckert machine was the fifth axis. On the HEC 800 5X, this is located in the workpiece and not in the tool. “That saves us from having to reclamp,” says Kordik. Ultimately, however, the decisive factor was the possibility of obtaining a bed extension along the Z axis and an extended Y travel path. Kordik describes the background: “We want to clamp components with a length of 1100 mm, and drill through them completely with an appropriate tool. The standard Z travel path of 1300 mm is not sufficient for this.” Starrag finally supplied the HEC 800 5X MT with travel paths of 2050 mm along the Z axis and 1300 mm along the Y axis. “At moderate costs,” says Karl Kordik, adding that “no other machine manufacturer had offered such extensions. We would have had to switch to much larger machines, which would, however, have been more expensive and would have been associated with reduced dynamics.” Instead, Neuson Hydrotec preferred to invest in useful additional equipment, such as a cooling lubricant temperature control system. “Our roughing operations generate a lot of heat, which would otherwise be transferred into the cooling lubricant and onto the component. But this would run the risk that, when it comes to generation, the exact fit sizes would no longer be correct after cooling.”

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