COMPETITIVE WITH AUTOMATED PRODUCTION.

Tscharner Mechanik AG | ACURA 65 EL
Field of application: Contract manufacturing | Company headquarters: Prättigau, Switzerland | Employees: 8

Tscharner Mechanik AG is a small manufacturing company in Prättigau. From the very beginning, founder Bruno Tscharner has focussed on automation. The latest investment is a fully automated production cell with the ACURA 65 5-axis machining centre from HEDELIUS.

Bruno Tscharner is a trained mechanic and belongs to the younger generation of machining specialists for whom automation is a natural part of manufacturing. For the full-time launch of his company Tscharner Mechanik AG in 2006, based in Schiers in Prättigau, B. Tscharner immediately invested in a 5-axis machining centre with a 6-fold pallet changer - after running the company as a sideline for two years in the garage of his parents' house.

"Even then, I realised that the machine had to keep running for as long as possible when I left the company in the evening," reports B. Tscharner. Three years later, Tscharner expanded the automation: "To be able to manufacture overnight as well," he explains. Later, another fully automated production cell with two 5-axis machining centres was added.

As a classic contract manufacturing company, Tscharner Mechanik AG primarily manufactures components with complex shapes and geometries for the machine industry - both series parts and single parts and prototypes. The usual series sizes are between 40 and 100 units, although series of up to 10,000 units can also be produced economically.

Advantage: great flexibility.

The size of the components is between 5 and 400 mm. Quality control is also part of the production process. Various parameters can be measured and documented on the 3D measuring machine in the separate measuring room. One of the advantages of Tscharner Mechanik AG is its great flexibility. "We can react very quickly and are able to deliver in the shortest possible time," reports B. Tscharner. The company has a total of eight employees.

The current investment in the ACURA 65 5-axis machining centre from HEDELIUS with automation from BMO is a replacement purchase for the first machine from the founding years. "The previous machine was already 15 years old. We needed a more modern and efficient machine," reports B. Tscharner. He was quickly won over by the ACURA and also by the Swiss partner Newemag | Schneider mc: "I saw the ACURA live on the Newemag | Schneider mc stand at the last Prodex. Although the machine was shown without automation, I was immediately impressed." 

Machine tool with high precision and dynamics.

The ACURA 65 from HEDELIUS is a high-performance machining centre with a rotating/swivelling table unit for multi-sided machining of complex workpieces with high precision and dynamics. "We were able to achieve productivity increases of 25 to 40 per cent with the ACURA alone," reports B. Tscharner. The high precision of the ACURA is based on a special machine design, while the solidly ribbed feed carriages made of grey cast iron also reduce vibrations.

Despite its compact design, the ACURA 65 offers large travel paths of 700 × 650 × 600 mm. Up to 500 kg can be clamped on the Ø 650 × 540 mm rotating/swivelling table. The machine table height of 845 mm and the large sliding door are designed for perfect accessibility. The work area is completely enclosed to ensure the cleanest possible working environment, but crane loading is still possible without restrictions.

Another highlight of the machine is the 65-slot tool magazine, which is integrated on the right-hand side of the machine and can be loaded from the front during machining, with an additional standby magazine with up to 190 tool slots. The spindle with a speed of 24,000 rpm is predestined for machining aluminium. Around 85 percent of the components machined at Tscharner are made of aluminium, as well as various plastics and steels.

A standard HSK-63 tool fitting also stands for dynamics. "The strategy and focus of HEDELIUS in the design of machine tools lies in high dynamics. This also includes an HSK-63 tool fitting as standard," explains the Managing Director of Newemag | Schneider mc Pirmin Zehnder and adds: "A particular advantage of such dynamic machines is that the tool edges are not subjected to as much stress, which increases tool life. The tools are also designed with this strategy in mind.".

Clear machine concept with a focus on automation.

"The entire machine package was very convincing for us," reports B. Tscharner and specifies: "We were very impressed by the speed of the machine and its high dynamics. The high stability and low vibrations should also be emphasised. But we were also impressed by the short delivery times and the attractive price." The machine can be equipped with a Heidenhain TNC 640 control system or a Sinumerik 840 D control system from Siemens.

"A major advantage of the ACURA is its clear machine concept. Certain standards are consistently thought through and implemented," explains P. Zehnder. This also includes the machine's consistent focus on automation. "Machines need a clearly defined interface to automation. The ACURA can be automated from the side, for example. That's a big plus, because it means the automation can be integrated relatively easily," P. Zehnder continues. It is interesting to note that HEDELIUS has developed the ACURA from scratch. One of the machine's highlights is the 65-cavity tool magazine, which is integrated on the right-hand side of the machine and can be loaded from the front during machining. For process reliability and automated production, the ACURA 65 can also be extended with a standby magazine with up to 190 tool positions and a cleaning station for cleaning the tapers. Tscharner Mechanik AG has also opted for this variant.

"Our goal is to achieve as many machine hours as possible with as few employees as possible," says B. Tscharner, explaining the company's consistent focus on automated production. Normally, Newemag | Schneider mc does a lot of consulting work when it comes to automation. However, Tscharner Mechanik AG's experience meant that there was little need for this. P. Zehnder reports: "We often have to provide customers with basic advice on automation. That wasn't necessary at Tscharner Mechanik AG, we didn't have to provide this advice." This is why the start-up phase with the entire production cell was very short.

Competitive with automation.

It therefore came as no surprise that the TILTENTA 9-3600, which was purchased in November 2019, was the third HEDELIUS machine to be equipped with a standby magazine. With its generous travel paths of 3600 x 900 x 900 mm (X/Y/Z), it is the largest machining centre in the machine park to date. Dominik Schöffel works on the new TILTENTA 9-3600 almost every day, and the machine operator finds the same high level of reliability that he is already familiar with from the other two models: "Everything works just as you would expect," he says happily. Equipped with a 6th horizontal axis, the TILTENTA 9-3600 is representative of the flexibility and precision that also characterises production at Piras.

The company's high in-house production rate of almost 100% makes it independent of suppliers and guarantees consistently high product quality, which Piras vouches for with conviction: "Everything that is manufactured here is under our control," he assures us. From the development of a customised solution concept through to its implementation, the operation handles all value creation steps itself. Individual and series parts are produced, sometimes in unusual shapes and in a wide variety of dimensions and batch sizes. Highly complex components, which can be manufactured on the TILTENTA 9-3600 to a reliably high quality, are always in demand, especially in special machine construction. The option of precise front side processing of long parts also pays off time and time again.