Within the CNC industry and milling industries you will find a wide variety of milling machine design. The types of machine and their names are respectively attributable to their construction or application.
Milling Machine Design : Basic Types
Basic types of milling machine design include knee-type and ram-type milling machines. Knee-type machines are horizontal or vertical and are used frequently in CNC milling services. A ram-type machine is also known as a saddle machine.
Keyway and slot milling machines are also basic type of milling machine design, as are piano-milling machines. Engraving and form copying milling machines are also basic types of machine that have been used for many decades, original machines being hand-controlled as opposed to CNC controlled. Thread and gear milling machines are also relatively popular.
A knee-type milling machine design can be used in conjunction with various attachments, meaning that this type of machine is used for a wild field of applications. Attachments that are commonly used are vertical and universal milling heads, rotary and universal indexing heads, and slot attachments. A knee-type machine used in CNC milling services will consist of three main units, the frame, the drive, and the control. The frame is made of the base plate, overarm, column, and counter bearings. The drive is made from the spindle and feed drives. Other special attachments can be added to the drive.
Milling Machine Design : Purpose of Milling
Milling techniques are used to produce workpieces that are made of free-cutting material. The cutting is done by a single or multi-edged tool that is called the milling cutter. The metal workpiece is cut using the cutter by performing rotary and linear movements.
CNC milling services and techniques are used to produce components that are flat, prismatic, curved, square, stepped, or parallel. They can also include inclined faces with slots, grooves, and threads. Milling techniques are either plain or face milling. Both techniques can be used for convention and down-cut milling.
Milling techniques used depend on the type of machine and the size of the operations. In the past, all milling machines were hand operated. Hand-operated mills have virtually all been phased out and replaced by CNC mills. You will however still find hobbyist machines that are hand operated.
CNC milling techniques used in precision engineering can produce a vast range of parts, to high ends of precision. Unlike the human hand, a computer numerically controlled machine will not make mistakes, and any error in the machine itself will be picked up and an error code sent to the controller.
CNC milling is just one type of operation commonly used in precision engineering in today’s modern world. Others include CNC turning, and the use of multi-axes machines. The first CNC machines used only 2 axes, but the most modern machine of today can use up to 9 axes, for higher levels of precision and for making even the most trickiest of CNC parts.
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