Complementary Control Systems - "M.M." 2001

Control retrofits are certainly not a new venture for IMTS; the company has been a systems integrator for NUM for the past six years. That said, there is no conflict with Engelhardt, for while the latter's CNCs are predominantly for four-axis cutter grinders, the NUM system is "an all-singing, all-dancing control for high-precision applications ranging from two-axis 10/00 grinding to five- axis machine knife grinding."
 
Recent applications undertaken by IMTS include retrofitting a NUM 1040 with IMTS-developed menu-driven software to a Jones & Shipman 10/94 cylindrical grinder. Originally fitted with an Allen Bradley 8200, the machine can now grind five diameters or faces (soon to be increased to 10) using straight-approach wheels. It can also taper, plunge, traverse and face grind, generate five profiles in the grinding wheel and undertake interpolative spherical grinding.
 
"CNC retrofitting is certainly the fastest-growing side of our business, as customers are increasingly wanting more capability based on customised software," says Mr Thurston. "We have developed a very structured open software that can be readily customised to satisfy users' specific requirements - software that is unique to their work and provides optimised processing. This has been developed in-house by our own software writers, and it is currently being used for many different applications, including the grinding of advanced aircraft bearings, fuel injection components and tool blanks, as well as general multi-CD and shoulder-grinding applications."