St. Louis, Missouri – At IMTS 2018 in booth #338348, Edge Technologies will present the FMB Turbo 3-38, an automatic bar loading magazine feeder designed for feeding round, square, and hexagonal bar material into CNC lathes. Quick change polyurethane guide channels allow for quiet operation at high rpm cutting. This feeder is compatible with all types of sliding or fixed, CNC, or cam operated lathes with spindle bores up to 38mm.
The design of the Turbo‘s main beam and support stands are resistant to bending, this keeps vibration from bent bars to a minimum, so a smooth operation is guaranteed. Double-pusher space-saving design is 4 feet shorter than single pusher bar feeders.
The Turbo 3-38 features a GE Fanuc SPS controller with a servo motor drive to the feed mechanism. Flexible control of bar length and rate of feed guarantee the optimum practical and economic use of the bar feeder. Easy options on the operator control panel guarantee proper interaction between the bar feeder and the CNC lathe, with parameters clearly shown on the text display.
This FMB model, like many other in the Turbo line, is equipped with a headstock synchronization device allowing rapid backward/forward movements on sliding headstock lathes without forward feed pressure from the bar pusher. The result: no bar distortion.
The polyurethane guide channels can be changed quickly and easily in about 10 minutes to accommodate multiple bar stock diameters. Oil filled guide channels envelope the stock, providing the ideal guiding system for high RPM turning operations. During this process the rotation of the bar creates a hydro-dynamic effect, centering the bar stock in the channel reducing noise and vibration. The guide channel is securely closed with a toggle lever system while machining bars.
A Roller Steady Rest device on the Turbo guides the bar stock between the bar feeder and lathe. Rollers or blocks provide excellent feeding of round or profiled material. The rollers can be continuously adjusted to the bar diameter and can quickly be replaced with blocks for supporting profiled material. Three Turbo 3-38 configurations will handle bar lengths of 3,200mm (10ft 6"), 3,800mm (12ft 5"), and 4,200mm (13ft 8").
Bars are placed on the storage table at the side of the guide channel This table features a loading capacity of 11 inches. The new bar is automatically positioned in the lathe ready for facing before the first component is produced. Part to part feed out can be controlled without a dead stop being required. Loading time for a 12ft bar is 26 seconds. Maximum adjustable feeding speed is 600mm per second and maximum adjustable return speed is 1,000mm per second.
The bar remnants are withdrawn to the back end of the magazine and a gripper extracts it out of the collet and deposits it in a remnant basket. An air operated gripping device is used to both insert the new bar into the bar stock collet and to extract the remnant. It is not necessary to chamfer the bar if it is cleanly cut. No adjustment for bar size is necessary and it is completely self-centering. Bar pusher collet changes can be done in less than 2 minutes with the Pin-On collet feature.