The aim of the investments was to achieve more precise and stable manufacturing process of the SIP machines and to achieve quieter operation and longer service life. The investment has improved our responsiveness to the production plan, contributed to easier and faster development of new products, reduced the production time of the machines and thus relieved the pressure on the company’s production processes.
Last year, at the beginning of November, we started up an EMAG CLC 260 H machine for the hobbing of splined shafts and spur gears in SIP’s production facility. It is capable of milling flat modular gears up to a diameter of 260 mm.
In January this year, the company’s production area was equipped with a new high-performance Phoenix 600HC bevel gear manufacturing machine from Gleason Works, USA, a leader in the development and manufacture of manufacturing systems for all types of gears, including software.
The Gleason Phoenix 600HC has been developed for the production ofbevel gears from m2 to m13 with a maximum workpiece diameter of 600 mm suitable for various industrial gear drives as well as drives on various commercial vehicles. It is a versatile machine, capable of cutting helical, straight and hypoid (curved) bevel gears. It can produce gears with one up to 300 teeth. The Phoenix in SIP is equipped with the patented Coniflex® cutting head. This is designed for the production of bevel gears with straight teeth and allows great flexibility, as by simply changing the 24 cutting knives it is possible to produce almost any bevel gear for our needs. The cutting head also has the advantage of enabling high-speed dry cutting without the use of emulsion or cutting oil, which contributes to a cleaner process, less health risk for the machine operator and at the same time greater care for the environment, as there is no need to use petroleum products with a negative impact on the environment.
To ensure the quality of the production, the Phoenix 600HC has a closed loop system that directly connects the machine to the measuring machine where the geometry of the gearing itself is measured. Depending on the deviation from the theoretical tooth shape, the necessary corrections can be automatically uploaded to the machine when they are needed. This reduces the possibility of error in the manual input of corrections and ensures optimum accuracy, while at the same time speeding up the machining process by eliminating the need for intervention by the machine operator. The machine can achieve a gear tooth quality of DIN 3965 level 3 before heat treatment of the workpiece. The advanced technology of the Gleason Phoenix 600 HC enables high productivity, making it possible to produce hundreds of gears per day, as the gear milling and raw material changeover times are much faster compared to older machines.
The Phoenix 600HC technology is further enhanced with the GEMS® programme system. This is a powerful software platform that represents the next generation of technologies for the design, manufacture and analysis of bevel gears and certain types of spur gears. GEMS also includes the Unical software tool, which allows the gear designer to make extremely precise adjustments to the micro-geometry of the gear tooth, resulting in very smooth and quiet running gear sets. The good meshing of the gear sets represents an even higher efficiency of the SIP machines, which means reduced power consumption and lower machine noise during operation.
With the new technology of the EMAG CLC 260 H and the Gleason Phoenix 600HC, we also offer top-quality gear manufacturing services. You can find out more about SIP’s manufacturing services HERE.
