Elena Ferrè –
New solutions for gear shaving, honing, chamfering and deburring. All this is made in Italy.
When you speak of 2013 with economists, entrepreneurs, operators of the various manufacturing sectors, you receive the unavoidable answer: it will still be a difficult year. But, fortunately, forecasts are not negative for all, especially for companies who have strongly invested in new products development in the past years. This is the case of the Italian company Sicmat based in Turin (Italy).
«For twenty-five years – Ettore Miletto, Managing Director, explains – our company has been specializing in a specific product niche, that’s to say NC gear shaving machines, reaching in this field a reference position on a world scale and high-level technical know-how.»
Customers are mainly in the automotive world, such as Fiat Chrysler, General Motors, Peugeot, Renault, Volkswagen, and in the sector of agricultural tractors and earth moving machines, such as John Deere and Caterpillar.
«Now we are insisting a lot on Asian markets, first of all China, India and Korea. But we are going to strengthen also new important markets, such as Russia and Brazil.»
A complete range of gear shaving machines
Shaving machines have been and still are the core product of Sicmat. «Today our range – adds Alberto Miletto, Technical Director of Sicmat – is the most complete and allows shaving from the small crown wheel to the gear for combine harvester with600 mmdiameter: Raso 200, Raso 400, Raso 600, Raso TP 250. Even if the shaving process is usually considered a mature one, at Sicmat we were convinced that there was still considerable room for improvements and new developments and we have gone on investing accordingly to remain in the forefront. We therefore introduced to the market the new gear shaving-chamfering machine Raso 250 TP, where TP means Twin Power, because both the piece-holding spindle and the tool-holding spindle are synchronized. The mission of Raso 250 TP is to be the reference machine for volume manufacturing on the market, fixing new precision and productivity standards in its class, with the advantage of a built-in chamfering-deburring unit.»
Service and sharing know-how with customers worldwide
«The best advertising – underlinesEttore Miletto– is the witness of satisfied customers. To keep customers satisfied during all the machine life, it is necessary to provide an excellent service to each customer and help the customer to achieve its production goals. We keep therefore a highly trained service staff to solve effectively all problems. In China, India and Korea our Agents have excellent service engineers specifically trained on Sicmat machines. We have also installed in Sicmat a high accuracy sharpening machine for shaving cutters, a Samputensili S 400 GS with 9 controlled axes, to resharpen our customer’s cutters and to look for optimal shaving cutter sharpening through trials. To have a last generation gear shaving machine is not sufficient to achieve a perfect shaving. You often need specifically designed cycles, shaving cutters with special resharpenings – piece clamping designed “ad hoc”, the correct coolant, automation and the list might go on». In the shaving process the global consulting capability of Sicmat is therefore highly appreciated by its customers.
From the left, Ettore Miletto Petrazzini Managing Director in Sicmat and Alberto Miletto Petrazzini,
Technical Director of the Italian company.
An innovative concept in gear shaving and honing
While shaving is a consolidated process, the gear finishing after hardening is, on the contrary, a quite effervescent field.
Sicmat has then decided to answer the market’s requirements dedicating its resources and know-how also to the honing process, undertaking the project of a new platform: a concept of modular machine with which to be able to realize two different but similar machines: a shaving machine with synchronized axes (pre-hardening machining), the more advanced on the market – the Raso 250 TP; and a honing machine (post-hardening finishing) of new conception, the Grono 250. The main characteristics of the new solution are: vertical workpiece axis, with synchronized workpiece axis and tool axis; integrated automation, application of linear motors and electrospindles. Using the same modules for shaving and honing machines obviously leads to scale economies and to better reliability of the machine itself, Grono 250.
«We have called our new honing machine Grono – Alberto Miletto ends – because the name reminds the grinding and honing operations, in English language. But why grinding, too, you will ask? Because using a grinding wheel with external toothing, with shape and sizes similar to a shaving cutter, higher cross angles between tool and gear than in standard honing can be used. At least from the theoretical point of view you can reach 90°, approaching cutting conditions that are more typical of the grinding operation.»
Gear Chamfering and Deburring
Before the gear finishing operation, both shaving and honing, it is important to prepare the workpiece properly through the operation of chamfering – deburring. Also in this field Sicmat has to propose a technically advanced solution: gear chamfering – deburring machines RCD 160 and RCD 300.
The workpiece spindle is vertical, the part is loaded (manually or by robot) from the top. Changeover system is very fast. The workpiece spindle is motorized, chamfering and deburring tools are idle; deburring tools can be motorized too as an option. RCD 160 and RCD 300 can be both single unit machines or integrated in gear manufacturing cells.
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