Established in 1966, Hy-Pro is a designer and manufacturer of a diverse range of high precision hydraulic control valves and pumps
for the mobile and marine market sectors, working with OEMs and designing products for specific applications.
The machinery investment is part of expansion at the family-owned company that is increasing its manufacturing capabilities at its Dawlish base.
Speaking to Machinery at MACH, machine shop manager Kevin Saunders, who has been with the company for more than 30 years, explains the Tschudin Cube will replace a budget Taiwanese grinding machine bought seven years that will do the job for sub-micron
parts, but it is very difficult to get there.
He adds: “I started speaking to Chris Boraston (managing director of Advanced Grinding Solutions) about three years agonow and he highlighted the Tschudin Cube. I then went to EMO Milan in October to look at it there along with other competitor models and came back and decided – this is the right machine.
“The changeovers were very quick and I just felt that because it is a small compact machine it would fit our workshop a lot better than other competitor ones and felt what they are offering is a much better machine.
“It is the smallest machine in our factory but the most expensive. This will out see me and I will be long retired before it needs replacing.”
The Tschudin Cube machine benefits from a highly radical design and enables users to achieve significant productivity gains and the machines particularly quick and flexible changeover times help to minimise machine downtime.
The small size and radical open design give easy access. Users only need access to the rear of the machine to perform maintenance and servicing tasks, meaning several machines can be positioned together without any gaps. The grinder can be manually loaded in a very safe and ergonomic way outside of the grinding zone.
The Cube uses Tschudin’s patented W-axis which has the workrest blade mounted onto its own CNC axis that allows for parts to be loaded to it outside of the grinding area making loading efficient, fast, and very safe.
Traditional centreless grinding machines require parts to be loaded to a fixed work-rest blade that sits inside of the machine between the grinding wheel and control wheel making loading difficult, more expensive, and sometimes unsafe. This also makes changeovers more complex and therefore lengthier.
The Tschudin Cube machine overcomes all these issues and claims to be the world’s easiest and fastest centreless grinding machine to set-up as the grinding and control wheel can be changed in only around six minutes.
