Well, I could remove more material using a 1910 Bridgeport that the latest Makino high speed machining center if I were using good technique on the Bridgeport and poor technique on the CNC.
What I am saying is that it is not just machine capability, there are other factors that are vital to successful materail removal. Machine, programming, tooling, workholding and especially MRP planning and workflow through your shop are all EQUALLY as important. Remove any one and your sucess level will decrease significantly. It is in your best interest get an answer to your original question with eyes wide open. The machine is only one part of the total equation of successful machining.
By the way... Makino's, Okuma's, OKK's, Yasda's, Mikron's, and many others are ALL bad to the bone. High material removal rate machines are much more of a commodity these days than even just a few years ago.
jbel is correct! It is alot more than just spindle speed and power. Aluminum removal is very tool geometry and tool material dependant. Every manufacturing process / tool you will be using to produce this part must be reviewed, hopefully by a group of people. After your done with it hand the job over to your best shop guy and then have the cycle time knocked down some more.
One of the best way to reduce cycle is to use special tooling that is custom designed for specific features like drill / c'bore / chamfer. This is how transfer machines, in part, get those killer cycle times. If it is a short run job you're going to be stuck with traditional tooling.
Also look at your raw material. The closer to the final shape the less you have to machine. As much as I like to make chips the first rule in machining is don't make chips if you can avoid it by planning the starting stock to be near net shape. Yes, this is common sense to the manufacturing engineer but many times the design engineer needs to be reintroduced to this concept.
You see China is beating the hech out of my cycle times, and they have purchased this 80KW spindle 30000rpm machine,
we machine structual parts for the aero space, all the parts are made from solid alluminum...
Don't be so sure that they are "beating the heck" out of your cycle time. They are probably whipping your pricing of the product. OK - what to do? If you are going to stay in this industry you will need to understand all of the things about high metal removal rates in aluminum and shortening the time to delivery. This means the WHOLE process needs to be reviewed from order entry, to CNC code generation to all of your machining effort.
You are competing on the time from order accepatance to arival at your customers door. As an IE I would diagram this whole process. Your sales/marketing department needs to do their homework and find out if there are some areas that China does not do well.
On the manufacturing side, I saw at the tool show a 60,000 rpm spindle from Datron (
If your going to hit this head on you will need to address: the machine tool and CNC control requirements, tooling for high speed machining, tool balance, chip removal, workholding and many other issues.
