At the MACH show in Birmingham this April, Citizen Machinery UK secured orders exceeding £4.5 million for 30 new Miyano fixed-head turning centres and Cincom sliding-head CNC lathes. The sales team was especially pleased that one-fifth of the sales were to new customers that had never purchased from the company before.
The success means that the supplier will be busy in the coming months, not only sourcing, configuring and supplying the bar-fed lathes, but also arranging a free trip to Japan for one individual from each company that placed an order at the exhibition. The Gateway to Japan initiative, which will include an exclusive factory tour for each attendee, was in celebration of the Japanese group’s 96th anniversary this year.
The UK subsidiary featured five new machines on its stand, with a similar number on show benefitting from 4-axis simultaneous LFV (low frequency vibration) chip-breaking functionality. Although the debut of the technology was at the supplier’s open house in Brierley Hill last October, the Birmingham show provided a first opportunity for a wider audience to see it in action.
Introduced more than a decade ago, LFV is integrated into the operating system of the control of Cincom and increasingly Miyano lathes. Distinct from programmed chip breaking macros offered by other suppliers, LFV synchronises high-frequency vibration in the direction of the cutting feed with spindle rotation to create intermittent air-cutting to break long swarf effectively. It has progressed from being a single-axis oscillation in the longitudinal feed direction at the main spindle exclusively to encompass operation in the X and Z axes at both the main and sub spindles simultaneously, vastly increasing its effectiveness.
4-axis LFV enhances flexibility, reduces cycle times and eliminates operational bottlenecks, since there is no need to stop the machine to remove tangled swarf, however complex the program. It is particularly advantageous during lights-out production when working with malleable materials like copper, some stainless steels, aluminium, titanium, nickel alloys, lead-free eco-brass and plastics.
Demonstrated under power on the stand were a total of eight lathes, with some machines capable of superimposed machining to reduce cycle times, with three tools in cut simultaneously. Among the Miyano fixed-head lathes were three new models: the BNJ-51SY7, the BNX-65MSY with a workpiece unloader, and the ANX-42SYY, which also featured an unloader system. They were joined by two new Cincom sliding-head models, the L32-X series 2 and the M32-VIII. The latter is notable for its hybrid design, combining the rapid movement of a gang tool post with the versatility of a 10-station turret.
For those requiring heavy-duty and high-precision milling, the Miyano ABX-80THY was a focal point. It features three 12-station tool turrets and enhanced thermal compensation, allowing turn-milling of parts from up to 80mm diameter bar to very high accuracy. At the opposite end of the spectrum, Citizen demonstrated its micro-machining prowess with the compact Cincom R04 sliding-head lathe. Equipped with a 20,000 rpm spindle and a backlash-free linear motor in the X-axis, the R04 was turning a tiny 2 mm diameter component from 4 mm bar stock.
