Five-axis mould machining with Hermle in HetecERT

The already wide large part machining centers park by Hermle employed by Hetec in mould and tool making has been increased with the addition of a new C 52 U five-axis machine. The manufacturer included five-axis machining centers from Hermle since 2009, starting with a C40 machining centre that was followed by a C 30 U, and then by the first large machines of the C 60 U and C 50 U series, while a C 400 U was also purchased in the meantime for machining smaller items.

In order to satisfy urgent costumer requirements, the latest addition in Hetec has been another large machine, a C 52 U, making another step further by ordering the HIM’S (Hermle information monitoring software) base package for the first time. The solution provides a display of the life status and transmission of the information by email as required, perfectly fitting Hetec’s manufacturing and (remote) monitoring strategy: single-shift normal operation and otherwise (monitored) automatic operation.

With a working range of X = 1000, Y = 1100, Z = 750 mm and the 700 mm swivelling rotary table with a load-bearing capacity of 2000 kg, the C 52 U machining centre is ideally suited to full/finishing machining of extremely intricate tool and mould components or base plates. The company strengthened the collaboration with Hermle, still delighted with the 5-axis concept and the performance, the very high degree of precision and accessibility offered, in addition to the fast service and the support received in all phases of projects.

As a practical illustration of this, Hetec points out that to date the C 40 U machining centre purchased in 2009 has already clocked up over 30000 spindle running hours, and still using the original spindle. Despite the broad range of applications in the areas of full processing and finishing work, the Hermle machining centres are only equipped with the standard tool magazines, thanks to the fact that Hetec has developed its own tool/magazine management system that allows all the milling machines and machining centres (each of which has the same HSK-A63 tool holding fixture) to be tooled according to the order and the work to be done.

Really much appreciated by Hetec is the fact that tools can be deployed as required and with drastically reduced changing and equipping times. Finally, the good accessibility also enables the company to carry out a full redeployment on the large machines from one workpiece to the next within 15 minutes.