A Tennessee based firearm component manufacturer has employed an Agile Flex 12D machine tool tending system to load the outboard pallet of their Mazak Variaxis i-700, allowing the machine to keep it’s spindle turning while processed parts are swapped out for blanks - further increasing machine utilization.
The scope of the system was to load and unload pistol slides from two unique auto-coupling hydraulic fixtures mounted to the pallets of the Mazak’s two-pallet changer system.
It features a custom designed gripping system, which includes double two-jaw pneumatically actuated units designed for adjustable gripping of rectangular parts.
To allow for more process options, this system included our bolt-on actuated regrip station, allowing for flexible repositioning of parts that require milling operations on more than one side.
After the blank is loaded onto the first pallet and is processed through the Mazak Variaxis i-700, it is then flipped over using the regrip station, loaded onto the second pallet for a second operation before the final product is returned to the drawer it came from.
The Agile Flex 12D is equipped with a Fanuc M-10iD/12 robot, three drawers, a top pallet for a fourth layer of parts and an actuated parts regrip station,
A unique and pivotal advantage of the Agile Flex 12D is that each of the three drawers and top pallet can be configured with a unique product, allowing a single run to include up to 4 unique product types and 8 unique CNC milling programs to be called up without any operator intervention, for runtimes exceeding 24 hours.
