Five-Axis Machining for Small Prismatic Parts

This compact, five-axis machine takes up minimal floor space and has a 50 by 50 by 50 mm workzone for producing small, complex parts. (Photo Credits: PM)

Although the Precision Machining Technology Show (PMTS) is commonly associated with high-volume turning technology, there was a healthy presence of advanced milling machines at the 2023 event held this past April. One example is the compact, five-axis Micro5 from Chiron Group, a machine that is new to the U.S. market and can complement a shop’s small-part turning capabilities.

This machine, part of the company’s Factory5 brand offering, is described as having a “5:1 ratio of machine to workpieces,” five-times lower weight and a much lower energy consumption than conventional machines at 500 W. Having a 50 by 50 by 50-mm working area, it is said to be well suited for small workpieces for industries, including medical (surgical devices, orthopedics, implants and so on), watchmaking (casings, movements and so on), jewelry and small electronics.

The 60,000-rpm, B-axis spindle offers ± 110 degrees of rotation.

The company says the Micro5 offers substantial rigidity, static stiffness and thermal stability, helping enable it to achieve 0.5-micron repeatability, 2-microns accuracy and quality surface finishes. It can achieve acceleration of 2 g, comes standard with a 60,000-rpm spindle (an optional 80,000-rpm spindle is available) and noise level during operation is less than 50 decibels.

The automatic toolchanger can accommodate 60 tools with its tower design.

A tower-design automatic toolchanger can accommodate as many as 60 tools with ATC 15-W tapers. This can enable multiple different tools to be installed to accommodate different parts or redundant tooling to run multiple similar parts. Parts can be machined dry (with air blast) with oil or using minimum quantity lubrication (MQL). A cart stored under the machining workzone is used to catch machined chips.

A variety of process parameters can be monitored and alerts can be sent when a given parameter falls out of specification (such as air pressure is too low).

The Micro5’s intuitive human-machine interface (HMI) monitors parameters such as feed rates, overall air pressure, power supply, spindle temperature, spindle current draw, DC bus and oil level. Alerts can be sent when a given parameter falls out of specification (such as air pressure is too low).

A variety of workholding devices are available, including zero-point clamping for manual or automatic workpiece clamping, a centric vice for automatic workpiece clamping and collet chucks. As many as six in-machine part pallet stations are available to enable long stretches of unattended operation. Each pallet has 500 g maximum load and pallet change time is 10 seconds. In addition, Chiron also offers the Feed5 six-axis external robot unit for automated part loading and unloading.