Chiron Open House Success

Over 1500 buyers, engineers and operators from around the world were welcomed to the Chiron manufacturing plants in Tuttlingen, Southern Germany for its annual Open House event where this year the accent was on both new products and demonstrating the organisation’s long established turnkey capability.

Among the visitors to Tuttlingen were a group from the UK who were guests of the Engineering Technology Group of Southam who are Chiron’s long standing UK provider of machines, engineering and service support.

Chiron was debuting its new 12-series compact vertical machining centres and also gave many customers the first opportunity to view and assess the ‘Baseline’ range for customers who need a standardised, flexible and universally usable solution rather than an individually configured machining centre.

The emphasis in the event was on practical demonstrations with over two dozen machines in the demonstration areas in full operation. But the factories themselves also played their part with customers able to view at first hand turnkey machine manufacturing and assembly being undertaken.

For the first time visitors were able to view Chiron’s new Medical & Precision Technology Centre where engineers and technicians with medical / technical backgrounds develop top products and processes in the in-house Centre in cooperation with the customers.

The demonstrations of the new generation 12 series machines highlighted their compact and multifunctional rigid and robust design with milling and drilling capacity for efficient production from a 5sq.metre footprint. 45mm linear guides are fitted on all three axes to ensure maximum precision and the best machining performance and the spindle power can be as high as 44kW, reaching maximum speeds of 18,000 rpm and a torque of 59 Nm.

In the factory environment Chiron demonstrated how machining centres can be flexibly adapted to customised requirements and order-specific tasks using its modular design system. Practical examples on machines destined for customers demonstrated how maximum productivity, high precision machining quality and short throughput times can be achived using Chiron’s integrated robot – AutomationUno.

Fully automated machining centres and systems from Chiron deliver highly automated handling solutions to combine high production quality, flexibility, low part piece costs and short cycle times to optimise a process. Chiron offers highly efficient robot options that can integrate gantry loading, component handling, machine-integrated workpiece grippers, shuttles or bar feeders to name a few.

Another machine that attracted considerable interest was the dynamic turning/milling centre FZ08 MT with its ability to work at speeds up to 54,000rpm driven by its new linear motors.

With a footprint of just three square meters, it meets strict requirements for precision and surface quality of chuck parts and bar machining. It offers traverse paths (X-Y-Z) of 210 mm, 200 mm and 360 mm, an integrated swivel head, turning and counter spindle.

Martin Doyle, ETG’s UK Group Sales and Marketing Director comments; This is always a highly informative visit and Chiron never fails to impress with the in-depth quality of its demonstrations and the professional way it goes about its product development and manufacturing.  We had guests from a wide cross section of UK manufacturing in our group and they all commented what in informative visit it was.“