Laser Cutter

A Laser cutter is a machine tool that uses a laser to cut a workpiece such as ferrous metals, non-ferrous metals, stone, plastics, rubber, ceramics, and many other soft materials. A laser cutter works by focusing a high power laser beam at a specific location on the surface of the workpiece. The energy in the laser beam is absorbed into the surface of the workpiece, and converted into heat. The energy density in the laser beam is extremely high, it is enough to melt or vaporize the surface of the workpiece. The melting surface will be propagated until the workpiece is cut through.



Articulated laser cutter arm - 6 axes of motion
Photo by Mundt Inc



CNC Laser Cutting Machine
Photo by Madewell Products Limited



Laser Cutter Machine
Photo by Vance Metal Fabricators, Inc

CNC Surface Grinding Machine

What is CNC surface grinding machine? A CNC surface grinding machine is a machine tool uses for producing micron-precise or ultra-fine finishes on tough workpiece and extremely accurate surface finishing with maximum precision and short cutting times. The surface finishing process will be performed by a rotated abrasive wheel which will remove the access metal from the surface of the workpiece. The abrasive wheels can be made up of various sizes and types of stones, diamonds or inorganic materials.

CNC surface grinding machine excels with repetitive, tedious and complicated parts, combines with extremely effective operation of conventional surface grinding machine with the user-friendliness and precision of modern CNC controller, servo drive and measuring systems. Normally the surface grinding machine is used for final machining process to the workpiece which has been machined by other method to get high accuracy in dimension of the workpiece.


Internal cylindrical grinding


External cylindrical grinding


Surface grinding final result

Photos by Leech Industries, Inc.


Surface grinding machine is also used to grind very hard workpiece especially the harden workpiece such as tools, dies and punches. CNC Surface Grinding Machine has the capability to grind flat surfaces, angular surfaces, concave & convex surfaces or centreless surfaces, external & internal cylindrical surfaces, round surfaces and cone surfaces.


CNC Surface Grinding Machine


NC Surface Grinding Machine

Photos by Ching Hwee International Trading Co., Ltd.

Indian Waterjet Cutting Machine

Watch the Indian Waterjet Cutting Machine video



Presented by Ainnovative Technologies

CNC Waterjet Cutting Machine

What is Waterjet Cutting Machine? A Waterjet Cutting Machine is a machine tool uses a specific and a consistent high pressure pressurized water called waterjet which supplied by high pressure pump to cut or pierce variety of metal or non-metal materials.

CNC Waterjet Cutting Machine is consistently deliver an extremely high level of cutting precision, accuracy and performance that fully utilize the waterjet cutting technology which uses CNC G codes and CNC M codes to control the overall machie cutting process.

There are two type of waterjets used by Waterjet Cutting Machines to cut materials. There are Pure Waterjet and Abrasive Waterjet. A Waterjet Cutting Machine might used pure waterjet or abrasive waterjet or both method to cut almost any materials. Pure waterjet uses to cut a variety of soft materials such as paper, rubber, foam and baby diapers. The abrasive waterjet uses to cut almost any hard materials such as titanium, stainless steel, stone and glass.


How a Waterjet Cutting Machine Works?

How Waterjet Cutter works? Basically, the Waterjet Cutter or Waterjet Cutting Machine uses the technology of high pressurized water supplied by high pressure pump and delivers it consistently and continuously up to 90,000 psi or 6200 Bar (620 MPa) and forced it through a pre-mounted orifice or small hole as small as 0.005 inches (0.127 mm), it will create a jet stream called pure waterjet.



Pure Waterjet


If a small amount of abrasive material such as granet is mixed into the jet stream, it will create a jet stream called abrasivejet or abrasive waterjet. The jet stream flow exits the nozzle will make contact with the surface of workpiece. The workpiece will develop small cracks due to jet stream impact and propagate until the material is cut through.



Abrasive Waterjet

CNC Waterjet Cutting Machine - JETMax HS 4020
Photo by Maximator JET GmbH

How to Retrofit A Machine?

How to retrofit a machine? Basically, to retrofit or to upgrade a machine you need to remove the old control components especially the machine controller, motor driver, motor of each axis, the lead screws for manual machine, lubrication system if necessary, and the electrical cabinet if necessary. In fact, to retrofit a machine can be divided into two main categories, to retrofit the manual machine and to retrofit the old CNC machine.

A. Retrofit The Manual Machine

These are the components need to replace or need to add in order to retrofit the manual machine:

1. The old controller need to be replaced with CNC controller
2. Motor driver need to replace with servo drive
3. Motor of each axis (X, Y & Z) need to be changed with servo motors
4. Lead screws will be replaced with precision ballscrews
5. Manual lubrication system need to change with auto lubrication system
6. If the machine not equipped with coolant system then coolant system need to add
7. The electrical cabinet might need to be changed if necessary
8. Change the power supply with transformer for bigger KVA or with other power supply
9. Retain the original ELCB, MCB, contactors, terminal block and fuses if possible
10. Inverter need to be added to control the spindle motor if necessary
11. Retain the light system if necessary
12. The machine and electrical cabinet need to re-wiring
13. Repaint the machine if necessary (optional)


Precision Ballscrew


B. Retrofit The CNC Old Machine

These are the components need to replace or need to add in order to retrofit the old CNC machine:

1. Old CNC controller need to change with new CNC controller
2. Servo drive need to change with the new servo drive
3. Servo motor for X, Y and Z axis need to change with new servo motors
4. The PLC need to add if the servo drive doest not have enough I/O
5. Retain the Inverter for spindle motor if possible
6. Retain the electrical cabinet if possible
7. Retain the transformer or power supply if possible
8. Retain the original ELCB, MCB, contactors, terminal block and fuses if possible
9. Retain the precision ball screw if possible
10. Retain the lubrication system, coolant system and hydraulic system if possible
11. Retain the light system if possible
12. Re-wiring the machine and electrical cabinet
13. The spindle motor can be change if need more RPM (optional) - costly
14. Repaint the machine (optional)


Emerson Inverter for Machine Retrofit

What is CNC Retrofit?

What is CNC retrofit? The CNC retrofit is machine rebuilding, upgrade or giving new life to the old machines whether the old cnc machines, the old manual machines or the unused machines. Machine retrofit is important especially to those machines facing high downtime due to a poor machine performance and the machine are getting too old and breakdown become more frequently. In fact, certain cases the CNC retrofitting will also take place due to limited capability of the machines especially the manual machines.

Downtime will cause a lot of delay in the work flow and it will cause a lot of headaches for a lot of people. Any downtime will cause serious losses and will cause huge loss of revenues as well. Certain machines could have excessive downtime due to a high frequency of maintenance, which may support the decisions to upgrade or retrofit ineffective machine that continues to adversely affect the bottom line and make the production more costly. Sometimes downtime occurred due to improper maintenance, low lubricant levels, high operating temperatures and other factors.

CNC retrofitting will be done by converting the manual machine into CNC machine or by replacing existing CNC controller with a new more flexible, and powerful latest generation CNC controller to increase the machines machining capabilities with the most cost effective way to suit your needs. Cost effective retrofit that help you to maximize your productivity. The retrofit provides superior machining capability for much less than the purchase price of a brand new machine.

The retrofit possible benefits include:

* Improve the machine flexibility up to 5 axis or more
* Improve machine accuracy and grad of machining
* Easy and flexibly parts programming and machining
* Equipped with USB port, RS323 port and Local Area Networking (LAN)
* Easy to edit, modify, download and upload programming file
* Reduce machine downtime and maintenance cost
* Easy machine trouble shooting
* Reduce parts damage and scrap
* Link the CNC controller with the computer network
* Increase the workers confident level and moral
* Easy to automate the retrofitted machine with the production line

Machines are suitable to retrofit included:

1. Milling machines
* Knee mill, bed mill or ram mill type
* Vertical machining center or horizontal machining center
2. Lathe machines
* Manual lathe machine
* Horizontal tuning center or vertical tuning center
3. Router machines and
4. Water jet cutting machines
5. Other machines

What is EDM?

What is EDM? The EDM is stands for Electrical Discharge Machining or Electrical Discharge Machine. Other popular name for EDM is Electro Discharge Machine. There are two most popular EDM machine, Ram EDM Machine and EDM Wire Cut. Ram EDM also known as, Sinker EDM, Die Sinker, Vertical EDM or Plunge EDM. Ram EDM divided into two main categories, Conventional EDM and CNC EDM. EDM is a non conventional machining method to remove unwanted material from electrically conductive workpiece or metal. EDM is a machining method primarily used for hard metals, super-tough alloy, hardened materials or cutting delicate cavities that would be impossible to machine with conventional machining method such as milling, drilling, grinding or with other type of conventional machine tools. Some of the EDM applications are machining aerospace alloys such as titanium, inconel, & hastalloy, removing broken taps, drills, & bolts and machining of carbide dies and tools.


Conventional EDM or EDM Ram Type

How EDM works? Basically, the EDM process is simple the unwanted material removes by use of recurrent sparks applied to a hard metal. An electrical discharge is created between an electrode and the workpiece known as spark to create spark gap or spark erosion between the electrode and workpiece. For Ram EDM, a special brass will be fabricated into a desire shape and use it as an electrode. The brass will be attached to the EDM machine and use it to machine the workpiece under carefully controlled conditions. Read this blog post about Wire Cut EDM for more details information.


CNC Electrical Discharge Machine / CNC EDM

Photos by Creator Precision co., Ltd

During EDM process, the current will be switched on and off by moving the electrode up (current off) and down (current on) to control the spark gap. When the current is switched on the spark jumps across the gap and the small amount of unwanted material is removed from the workpiece to allow the electrode to be moved through the workpiece. The electrical spark are very short in duration, approximately 1 microsecond to 1 millisecond each. This process repeats its self over and over again until the electrode is slowly advanced deeper and deeper into the cut. The path of the electrode is typically controlled by a numerical controller (NC) for NC EDM machine or computer numerical controller (CNC) for CNC EDM machine, which allows a desire shapes to be produced.

The spark always takes place in the dielectric of deionized fluid which acts as a coolant and when the current is switch off the deionized fluid will flushes away the eroded particles from the workpiece. In fact, the electrode itself does not touch the workpiece being cut because the actual cutting is being done by the electrical discharge or spark created between the electrode and the workpiece.