“Dozens of machine tool equipment, immersed in the operation of technical workers, compact and practical factory configuration, hot workshop atmosphere” – into Wuxi Jinge CNC Equipment Co., LTD. (hereinafter referred to as “Wuxi Jinge”), as if to see many of China’s small and medium-sized private machining enterprises in miniature, they have limited conditions but can stick to quality, they live in a corner but can be full of passion, Their pace is slow but they are not afraid of challenges.

Wuxi Jinge, which focuses on “high precision manufacturing”, was founded in 2005, and its leader is Huang Hao, a senior teacher from the mechanical college of well-known universities. Inspired by Japan’s “Seiko workshop factory”, from the beginning of his business, he is committed to creating a “small and fine, small and beautiful” technology-based enterprise – bringing together a group of professionals, using process strength and experience accumulation, to assist users to overcome various types of precision complex parts processing. After nearly 20 years of development, Wuxi Jinge has created a good reputation in the industry with strong processing capacity, and its customers are all over the world’s first-class high-end automobile, aviation, construction machinery and other enterprises.

To forge the core competitiveness of enterprises, soft and hard must be combined. In this regard, Mr. Huang pointed out the “good helper” of Wuxi Jinge in the exploration of precision manufacturing: “The horizontal five-axis linkage general machining center from GROB GROB, Germany, is the key to help us enhance our core competitiveness and maintain a competitive advantage!”

“Build a nest to attract the phoenix”

The design and production of high-precision complex parts is the focus of the business focus of Wuxi Jinge, which also means that the extreme accuracy requirements, complex processing technology, strict quality detection, very short delivery cycle and preparation time, and the “small batch, multi-variety” characteristics of such parts have become the daily processing challenges faced by Jinge. Layer upon layer, increasingly prominent problems, so that the use of traditional three-axis/four-axis equipment has been Wuxi Jingo feel the pressure. General Manager Huang said: “When processing some complex parts with traditional equipment, the process route is long, the process is complicated, and the need to repeatedly install and position on different machine tools is not only time-consuming, but also a slight error will affect the accuracy of the parts, resulting in scrap.” To meet the needs of users and for the long-term development of the company, we need a good five-axis device.”

“After a lifetime of mechanical processing, seeing good equipment is like a child seeing a toy, and I love it from my heart.” According to the general manager Huang recalled that in 2016, when he first came into contact with the Grob five-axis horizontal overtime in his university, he felt the powerful performance of this equipment. “When I went to the Open Day of the Grob Shanghai Technical Center in China and saw all kinds of complex parts actually processed on site, I had greater trust in the brand. In 2018, I made up my mind and purchased the first Grob five-axis universal machining center G350 for the factory.”

There is no order demand, and I do not know what products to do in the future, just holding the belief that “good equipment can do a good product”, Huang’s decision was under great pressure at that time. But soon, Grob machine tools with excellent performance for him to eat a reassuring – since the delivery of the equipment after the operation, Wuxi Jinge repeated difficulties, received a lot of orders, the company widened the scope of industry application. Based on these good experiences, in less than a year, Wuxi Jingo successively purchased two Grob five-axis linkage general machining centers G350 and G550, opening a new chapter in the development of the company with horizontal five-axis technology.

Mission impossible

At present, the three Grob five-axis horizontal joints in the Wuxi Jinge production workshop have become the main force of the company’s complex precision parts processing. The biggest advantage of the five-axis equipment is that the complex process that originally required multiple traditional equipment to cooperate with each other is integrated into one device and completed at a time. It not only improves the processing efficiency, effectively guarantees the accuracy, but also greatly reduces labor costs. “Today, from the opening of rough parts, to the semi-finishing of semi-finished parts, to the finishing of multiple faces of parts, we can do it all in one go on Grob equipment. In particular, Grob’s five-axis milling technology has an efficient roughing capability, increasing efficiency by more than 30% compared to conventional equipment, which is very helpful to us.” Huang said, “In addition, its high versatility design concept is very suitable for our needs, engaged in parts processing, our requirements for processing flexibility is very high.” First of all, its three linear axes and two rotating axes can achieve A unique design of five-axis linkage machining, and A ‘axis rotation range of 225°, B’ rotation range of 360°, giving us great machining freedom, different industries, different sizes of parts can be covered. Secondly, because the machine tool can be changed outside the working area, we can work with long tools without restriction.”

Subsequently, Jinge technical Director Zhou Wenjun to the company recently completed the delivery of a hydraulic valve plate parts as an example to show us: this is a high precision parts used in construction machinery, the size of 500*300mm, parts from flatness, surface roughness, to the cylindricity of the hole, aperture size tolerance have extremely strict requirements. Before the part was handed over to Wuxi Jinge, it had experienced numerous failures and spent more than 20 million yuan of equipment and personnel investment, and the qualified rate of the finished product was less than 50%. In the face of seemingly impossible challenges, Wuxi Jinge rose to the challenge and cooperated with Grob horizontal five-axis machining center to successfully turn “impossible” into “possible”.

“The structure of this valve plate part is actually not complicated, the biggest difficulty is its high requirements for the accuracy of each part, not only to ensure that more than 400 dimensions on each part are tested qualified, the cylindricity of 180mm long hole is less than 7 μm, and all the aperture size tolerances are consistent, but also strictly limit the flatness and surface roughness of the part.” General Manager Zhou said, “After getting the parts drawings, our technical team is clearly aware that we should reduce the number of processing procedures and clamping as much as possible, and avoid errors in all aspects of process design and machine tool cutting.” Thanks to the high precision of Grob’s five-axis horizontal mounting, we finally imagined the landing and even achieved the delivery of the first batch of products beyond customer standards.” Of the 17 valve plate parts delivered by Wuxi Jinge, only 1 did not pass the acceptance, and the pass rate was suddenly increased to 94%. Qualified parts are also with surface roughness Ra0.03 (almost close to the mirror), hole cylindricity 2-3μm excellent performance, the harvest of customers highly recognized, and therefore won the subsequent orders.

To ensure the high precision of parts processing, Grob five-axis linkage general machining center has a number of “magic weapons”. The first is the excellent rigidity of the machine tool, which provides extremely high stability and safety for the entire processing process; Secondly, the unique horizontal spindle and cross slide structure ensure that the spindle remains stable during rotation and movement, and will not affect the processing accuracy due to runout; Then there is the high-performance grating ruler, measuring system, automatic compensation system, etc. configured inside the machine tool, which also escorts the processing from all aspects… “In addition, the unique structure of the Grob G350 and G550 table is also a big tool for us to help users improve accuracy. Behind the single-arm support for the table turnover processing, there is a stable structure composed of a super-large diameter bearing, lead screw and balance cylinder, which can reliably and smoothly realize the workpiece turnover. It’s more flexible, less intrusive and more accessible than dual-arm support structures.” Graub Machine tool (China) Co., LTD. General processing center senior sales manager Pang Li added.