Citizen open house secures 21 orders from both existing and new customers

Of the 21 orders secured at the Citizen Machinery UK autumn open house in October, four were placed by companies that had never bought Cincom sliding-head or Miyano fixed-head turning centres before. Over the three days, a total of 177 visitors representing 87 manufacturing firms were welcomed into the Brierley Hill showroom and demonstration centre.

The technology on show was designed to explain what’s possible in terms of productivity gains, lights‑out machining and return on investment when investing in CNC machine tools. A case in point was Citizen’s roll-out of four-axis simultaneous LFV (low-frequency vibration) chip-breaking across a majority of its lathes.

The oscillatory motion now operates simultaneously in two axes at both the main and sub spindles. Minimised dwell times result from sharing operations more evenly between the spindles. This capability makes uninterrupted superimposed machining possible without the unwanted generation of stringy swarf when turning ductile and malleable metals and plastics.

Automatic tool change was featured on a Miyano BNE-65ATC, designed to raise the efficiency of complex one-hit machining. Other Miyanos on show were the ABX-80THY3 and a seventh-generation BNJ-51SY7 LFV. The Cincom line-up consisted of the L12-2M10LFV, L20-3M8LFV, L32-2M10LFV and M32-5M8LFV. All turning centres were under power producing demonstration components. One of the L-series Cincoms was shown with an integral laser cutting head mounted in the gang tool slide, which was micro-machining fine apertures at high speed in a turned tubular component.

As usual, a cohort of supplier companies was there to make contact with the large attendance of forward-looking manufacturers, both OEMs and subcontractors. The stands exhibited the latest workholding equipment, cutting tools, probing, parts handling, barfeeds, coolant and high-pressure delivery systems, filtration, dust and fume extraction, CADCAM and production control software, materials, and more.