ROYAL MASTER GRINDERS BOOTH N-6626
Welcome to Royal Master Grinders Booth N-6626 from IMTS 2022. We are proud to present to you the latest accomplishments of our Engineering and Application Specialist team. More importantly, we are anxious to hear feedback from you on your application challenges. We met so many amazing customers at the show. If you were not able to attend, we hope you spend time here in our “Virtual Booth.” Be sure to contact us with any questions!
Booth N-6626 was just left of center in the North Building at McCormick Place. Our Diamond Plate floor sets us apart from others with real grinders in the real world. Here on this floor, we are grinding actual parts, not just talking about it. Stop in, and let’s talk about your grinding application needs.
Let’s walk through the booth one machine at a time.
Starting at the right front corner, you will see eight machines, each of them powered and performing live demonstrations of their capabilities; grinding or measuring parts to close tolerance, some with full automation. The first one that will catch your eye is in the back center of the booth – the new Needle Grinder – but we will visit that machine a bit later.
This system was designed for the show to demonstrate the flexibility of the UR collaborative robot coupled with the accuracy of the hi-accuracy machine. The UR5 Robot is mounted to a rigid, but moveable platform so machine maintenance can be done without having a robot in the way. This loading system can be used for high or low volume applications. If you have lower volume applications, Kaiser manufacturing Foam inserts in a standard pallet tray make for easy pallet manufacturing at a low cost. 3D print your EOAT for those part geometries that are challenging and that you may only have to grind once in awhile.
This is our best selling machine configuration where there is a high end operator interface yet at a reasonable cost. The system is hand-loaded so it gives us the opportunity to discuss the machine itself. The grinding wheel has a auto dresser on it which is a nice feature for applications that have deep forms that need to be dressed into the grinding wheel. It is a perfect job shop machine where holding less than a “tenth” is where you need to be.
Starting with .022” NiTI material, the part is less then .300” long and has a multitude of shapes ground into it including a radii and flats. Although this machine is grinding parts this small, it is widely known for the grinding of heart catheter guidewires. With hundreds sold world wide for this application, its fully automated set-up is highly efficient for a process that grind diameters to less then .001” routinely.
This machine is designed to be a highly automated system for infeed or thrufeed grinding where a safety enclosure is needed for the grinding cell. In this particular application, the Fanuc robot is loading parts from a pallet located on the backside of the machine in an elevator. The pallet will exit the elevator into the grinding enclosure, and then the robot will pick the parts to be loaded into the machine. Once the part is ground, the robot will switch parts, reload the pallet and continue. Cleaning and Gauging can also be incorporated into the cycle.
This unique piece of equipment grinds 14 parts at a time with a Fanuc Robot and custom EOAT. The EOAT can infinitely rotate all 14 parts simultaneously to .5 degree accuracy. Primarily used to grind needles and K wires for the orthopedic industry, it can be used for many other applications including high volume parts that require post processing that is normally done by hand.
This machine is ideal for grinding bar stock under .5” diameter or piece parts. With the pulse generator, you can make size compensations in 1 micron increments. The versatility of this Thrufeed machine is unmatched as it can grind from .002” to 1.5” in diameter and under 1 micron round and straight.
The first is the 12×8 Hi-Accuracy and the second is the 12×8 Thrufeed machine. Both can grind from .002” to 3” in diameter and also to under 1 micron round and straight. They are grinding very different applications: one is grinding a spindle for a truck steering gearbox and the TF machine is grinding an extractor.
Questions? Have a project you want to discuss? Bring your part drawings to the booth (or email to us!), and we are happy to determine the best way to grind the parts and also discuss other aspects of your project.
Royal Master Grinders, Inc.
143 Bauer Drive
Oakland, NJ 07436