Minutes instead of days: Complete solution reduces assembly times of machining centres

• What was needed: readychain® customised energy chain
• Requirements: Long travel distances, high dynamics, oil resistance, fast assembly
• Industry: Machine tool construction
• Success for the customer: Ready-to-install readychain® systems can reduce assembly time, process costs and errors

In hardly any other industry are optimised throughput times as crucial as in the machine tool industry. A lot of process costs can be saved by minimising individual work steps. The design engineers at Hartford, the largest manufacturer of CNC machining centres in Taiwan, are well aware of this. Since 2017, the company has been developing CNC systems in the AERO series - large portal machining centres for very large components, such as those required for the aerospace industry. Precision and reliability play a very important role in this industry. It was therefore particularly important for Hartford that the entire energy supply is safely routed from the control cabinet to the moving parts such as the spindle and motors. At the same time, all information about the axis position and dynamics must be fed back to the control system without interruption. And this with accelerations of up to 0.5 g and a maximum travelling speed of up to 60 m/min. for the first model in this series, the AERO626.

So the Hartford engineers turned to igus®. igus® presented Hartford with a readychain® solution for its AERO series systems, i.e. a pre-assembled complete solution consisting of energy chain and chainflex® cable. Pleasing for the engineers at Hartford: By using the igus® energy chain, the required installation space could be significantly reduced. One reason for this is that all chainflex® cables on this system are equipped with an oil-resistant PUR-outer jacket. There is therefore no need for an additional protective hose, which reduces the space required for the cable and therefore the size of the chains, makes maintenance easier and, last but not least, reduces costs by eliminating the protective hose.
Before the system was installed, igus® Taiwan and Hartford worked closely together to create a 3D drawing of the readychain® with assembly frame in order to simulate the assembly process. The result was immediately impressive: The first energy chain, equipped with all electrical cables, was installed in just one hour. The second chain with hydraulic hoses was even installed in just 40 minutes.

Normally, machine tool manufacturers try to avoid carrying out too much assembly work on a system at the same time. A lot of manual labour by different employees does not automatically increase efficiency and also increases the susceptibility to errors. By using igus® readychains, all four e-chain® from igus® can be completely installed in half a day. In the past, two employees needed one and a half weeks to work on the X-axis and a further week for the energy supply of the Y- and Z-axis in an AERO system. This enables Hartford to save work steps and process costs while significantly increasing productivity. And always rely on the tested quality of the readychains from igus®.