Fast Mill
Equipped with a 20,000 rpm spindle, the MIKRON HPM 1200 HD three-axis machining center from GF AgieCharmilles (charmillesus.com) offers high-speed, high-precision cutting on alloyed steels and aluminums with a machining area of 1200 x 600 x 500 mm.
It’s anchored by a polymer concrete, cube shaped base for performance milling, while an integrated pallet changer works to allow uninterrupted machining. Additionally, it comes with a 60-position tool magazine and double arm gripper to offer tool changes in two seconds.
Time-critical Machined Prototypes
The MIKRON HPM 1200 HD milling machine features a 20,000 rpm spindle.
Compatible Manufacturing (compatiblemanufacturing.com), based in Silicon Valley, used to be primarily a volume producer for customers. But when Karl Harding, the shop floor manager, is asked how important it was—and still is—for Compatible to shift its focus to providing machined rapid prototypes, he admits, “The quick turnaround is what’s kept us alive.”
Harding explains that unlike volume production, where “it isn’t a matter of how fast you are, but how cheap you are”—those companies looking for machined prototypes are more concerned with speed than cost. So according to Harding, Compatible Manufacturing somewhat shifted gears in its 10,000 sq-ft. facility over the past few years to focus more on prototyping than volume production. To succeed, they had to be fast. After all, if customers don’t pay as much attention to price as they do speed for their prototypes, then speed has to be the deciding factor. So just how fast does Compatible Manufacturing claim to be? For most parts, one-day fast.
Using an array of vertical three and four axis CNC machines, Compatible Manufacturing creates prototype parts for companies like NASA, Raytheon and the U.S. government from materials including steel, plastic, ceramic, and even titanium. Harding says the CNC machines allow for accurate cutting and additional speed in creating parts of differing complexities, without having to create any tooling. And he points out that unlike parts that are made with additive manufacturing technologies, the parts being produced at Compatible are (1) being manufactured in comparable time frames and (2) have the physical characteristics—durability, mechanics and surface quality—of the “real” parts..
At Compatible Manufacturing, operators work directly from customer native CAD files on the shop floor, creating the machining tool paths in SURFCAM software (surfware.com) in as little as 20 minutes. For more complex parts, Harding says it takes improvising and innovation from the entire team to get them exactly how the customer wants it. That’s where the “compatible” part of the company name comes into play, he says.
“People will come to us and say ‘This is what it needs to be, it has to be this.’ We’ll figure it out. A lot of other companies don’t want to do that. We can create anything from a tiny little part to a 25-in. square,” Harding says. And with quick turnaround.
