By retrofitting a Cool Blaster high-pressure coolant system to its new Citizen M32 CNC sliding head automatic lathe, Unicut Precision has been able to reduce the cycle time on a complex 31mm diameter stainless-steel hydraulic component by some 12%. It has also increased feeds and speeds, and improved tool life by up to 300% and reduced swarf problems resulting in a totally clean, finished component from the machine ready for packing and despatch to the customer. So successful has the retrofit been by NC Engineering of Watford, that Unicut has ordered a second Citizen M32 with the Cool Blaster already installed. Codirector Jason Nicholson has also been able to discuss with his customer a more competitive price in exchange for increased business.
Unicut has nine Citizen machines engaged in aerospace, automotive, electronic, medical and telecommunication work producing batches between 50 and 1,000,000 parts. Many are produced from stainless steel or similar difficult to turn materials but to meet the fast changing UK subcontract market for more complex mill/turn parts, the L and M Series Citizens have proven key to a steadily mounting order book and highly successful ‘just in time’ deliveries. The Cool Blaster system has four programmable line outputs which deliver coolant at 140bar. The jets can be operated simultaneously from a central manifold installed on the machine and delivered at up to 20 litre/min. Each line is selectable, directly from the machining program, to provide high-pressure coolant through a five-micron filter to different areas of the machine such as the gang tool slide, turret and subspindle. There is also a through subspindle wash that ensures the collet is effectively cleaned between cycles and coolant can be fed directly through the tool on end-working positions.
