Subcontractor Chooses 30-Taper Production Centre to Embark on 5-Axis Prismatic Machining

Subcontractors are increasingly moving towards the 30-taper interface, especially with the BIG-Plus face and taper contact option, as it combines 40-taper rigidity with the exceptionally high speed motions of which the smaller form factor machines are capable.

Mr Roach commented, “The Brother practically sold itself. We couldn’t find a 40-taper machine that would fit, while other 30-taper equipment suppliers had a limited number of production platforms and automation possibilities in their range, which would have limited our future options.

“Additionally, I was drawn to the Brother because it is a true 5-axis machine, not a 3-axis model with a bolt-on compound table. An added bonus is that Whitehouse offers unlimited ongoing technical support and is very quick to respond when we have a query. Someone always gets back to us within half an hour.”

As he was swapping to a smaller diameter tool holder that he had never used before, Mr Roach was keen to satisfy himself that the Brother machine was powerful enough to remove metal quickly. Admittedly most of the material going through the shop is aluminium, with the remainder mainly plastic, but often billets are reduced to 10% of their original size, such as a medical robot part that is regularly produced. In one recent instance, a 72 kg block of 6082 aluminium was milled down to a weight of 4 kg, a reduction of more than 94%.

With a similar aluminium billet and some Ceratizit roughing end mills, he drove 100 miles west to Whitehouse Machine Tools’ showroom and technical centre in Kenilworth to put a U500Xd1 through its paces. He said, “I was impressed not only by the metal removal rate, but also by the size of parts that can be produced in such a small footprint.

“I would have no hesitation producing components from tougher materials either, as it’s an easy matter to change the machining strategy to limit the width and depth of cut and increase the spindle speed and feed rate.”

Since there was an urgent need in Wisbech for the additional spindle, he decided to rent a U500Xd1 straight away ahead of taking delivery in April 2025 of a more capable model, a U500Xd2. Whitehouse duly supplied the rental machine and provided two days of on-site training.

The upgraded U500Xd2 has longer travels in X and Y, giving a working volume of 500 x 450 x 380 mm. Rotary axis motions are the same, as are the 16,000 rpm BIG-Plus spindle and the 28-position tool magazine, but the control is full 5-axis rather than 4+1. A high-accuracy mode option with 1000-block look-ahead has been selected, as well as 35 bar high pressure coolant, and Blum probes for checking cutter length and workpiece position. Chip-to-chip time is fast at 1.4 seconds owing to simultaneous tool change and rapid traverse in the linear and rotary axes.

To indicate how much faster the U500Xd1 is, and the U500Xd2 will be, compared to one of his 40-taper VMCs, Mr Roach cited a scientific part produced from solid aluminium that formerly required four separate set-ups on 3-axis machines. The number of operations has been halved and the same component is now produced in 36% of the time. That is because although Op 1 is the same, Ops 2, 3 and 4 are now completed on the 5-axis Brother in a single clamping using the rotary axes to position the part for 5-sided machining.