Exactaform at the ‘Cutting-Edge’

Headquartered in Coventry, Exactaform is a specialist in the design and manufacture of diamond and carbide tooling for a rapidly expanding domestic and international customer base. The business prides itself in being large enough to be regarded a trusted tooling partner to many of the world’s progressive aerospace, automotive and motorsport businesses, whilst being small enough to provide a personal, technically superior service.

Having achieved prefared supplier status to many businesses in the global composite industry over the past decade, Exactaform is experienced in providing advanced PCD machining solutions that are able to effectively and accurately machine non-ferrous materials such as Aluminium, MMC, Carbon fibre and Glass filled resins. In addition, the company designs and manufactures cutting-edge carbide tooling that is able to efficiently machine a wide range of ‘exotics’ such as Inconel.
In order to remain at the ‘cutting-edge’ of tooling manufacture, and to help keep pace with growing demand for its output, the staff of Exactaform continually searches for advanced production equipment that will further improve the businesses impressive capabilities. The latest addition to the company’s machining aids is an advanced rotary table purchased from Swiss manufacturer Pl Lehmann.

Explaining the company’s recent purchase and the rotary table’s intended use, Exactaform Research and development Director, Martyn Biddle said. “The global tooling industry is rapidly evolving. Now, customers don’t have to rely on off-the-shelf cutting tools from large global OEM’s. Rather than supply a ‘best-fit’ or ‘compromise’ tooling solution, at Exactaform we are dedicated to boosting our customers’ productivity and reducing their costs by supplying optimal tooling answers that reduce lead times, saves money and increases machining performance.

“Our skilled staff are able to design progressive tooling geometries that can overcome a wide range of application challenges. We now supply an ever growing range of super-efficient, long lasting PCD and carbide tooling, including countersinks, drills, milling tools and reamers.”

“Our highly developed manufacturing systems allow the highly-efficient production of tools to take place. As well as aiding our industry leading lead times, our in-house manufacturing efficiencies enables the delivery of high-quality PCD and carbide tooling at extremely cost-effective prices”

“Exactaform’s skilled staff apply their considerable expertise and use state-of-the-art software to design our tools. Although, to further guarantee that our tools deliver superior machining performance, high levels of dimensional accuracy and long lasting qualities, we also perform exhaustive machining trials. Through the use of our machining trials the effective operation of tools can be monitored and verified. Alternatively, designs can be further developed until optimum levels of performance are achieved.

“To further develop our capabilities in the important area of tooling trials we recently searched for a large, heavy duty CNC rotary table that would provide the high precision 5 axis machining that we need, and that could be retrofitted to our DMG MORI DMC 1450 machine tool. After carefully assessing the alternative products from several major manufacturers, we came to the conclusion that an advanced rotary table from pl Lehmann best matched our demanding needs.”

“The knowledgeable technical staff of pl Lehmann quickly understood our needs and suggested a T1-520530 TOP3 model, the largest 5th axis rotary table in the company’s range. As we were aware of pl Lehmann’s excellent reputation, and as the T1-520530 TOP3 ticked all of our boxes, we were happy to place an order.
“Following the trouble-free fitting into our DMG MORI DMC and integration into the machine’s Siemens controller, our new rotary table soon began to deliver the levels of performance we were promised. The 5th axis provided by our pl Lehmann rotary table, and its impressive speed and precision are now making significant contributions to our tooling machining trials.”

pL LEHMANN has been at the forefront of the design and manufacture of high-quality, durable rotary tables for over four decades. The Swiss company’s expertise is reflected in the premium quality of the company’s products. To help reduce the required part count across the company’s comprehensive range and to enable the availability of Swiss Quality CNC rotary tables at a cost effective price, pL LEHMANN rotary tables are constructed on an advanced modular design concept. This highly efficient arrangement enables a wide range of first-class, cost-effective options to be made available that are able to meet customers’ various machining needs and budgets.

Pl Lehmann CNC rotary tables are divided into geared and direct drive rotary versions and offer great flexibility. The company’s powerful designs offer many useful features, such as a built-in booster for spindle clamping, an internal monitoring system of all important functions and Bluetooth access for remote service. pl Lehmann’s product line also offers a wide range of workpiece clamping possibilities, including options for fully automatic loading, and unloading by robots.

The T1-520530 TOP3 model, as installed in Exactaform’s DMG MORI DMC 1450 machine, is pl Lehmann’s largest available CNC, 5th axis rotary table and is able to accommodate workpieces of up to 600mm diameter and weighing up to 200kg. Despite the rotary table’s generous capacity, its clever design means that it occupies a relatively small space within the machine tool. Given the demanding machining applications it is designed to undertake, the robust rotary table boasts high clamping forces of 2000 Nm rotating / 7000 Nm tilting.
Aiding machining efficiency, the T1-520530 TOP3 provides 50 rpm rotating and 25 rpm tilting speeds. The advanced pl Lehmann rotary table is lifetime pre-loaded (adjustable) and backlash free and delivers impressive accuracy and repeatability figures of 12 arc sec. and 2 arc sec respectively.

The machining of complex workpiece geometries requires robust, flexible workpiece clamping and rapid, precise compound movements within the machine tool compartment. Throughout the world, and across multiple machine tools and challenging applications, pL LEHMANN CNC rotary table’s deliver all of these needs.

Now used on more than 40 different machine tool brands and on over 160 different machine models, the scope of pL Lehmann’s range means that optimal solutions can be supplied to the vast majority of machining applications. The company’s products can be fitted to new machine tools or retrofitted to existing machines. In addition, the flexible rotary tables allow trouble free Integration into all known CNC control systems, including Fanuc, Siemens, Heidenhain, Haas, Winmax, Mitsubishi, Brother and Mazatrol.