Power steering shaft grinder offers cost-down answer

Called ISGX, it will be exclusively marketed and distributed by Bishop Steering Technology worldwide - the company's European headquarters is in Magdeburg, Germany. “The partnership between Bishop and ANCA was born from mutual recognition of the relative strengths of each company," said Pat Boland, managing director of ANCA. "The combination of ANCA’s latest machine design, building and grinding innovations with Bishop’s expertise in hydraulic power-steering valve design and manufacture, and in-process gauging technology, presents a powerful solution to the market.” Mr Bruce Grey, managing director of Bishop Technology Group added: "The strategic alliance of these two Australian industry icons has resulted in a superior input-shaft grinding machine platform, which is perfectly suited to supply the increased market demand in the very competitive manufacturing cost-down with increased product quality environment.” The ISGX will be available in different configurations that allow grinding of one or all of the key features on the hydraulic power-steering input shafts, namely outside diameter, metering slot and metering slot edge. In the case of the ISGX 1-in-1 configuration, which includes Bishop’s proven Feather Edge Grinding technology, metering slot edges can be ground to micron accuracy in around 25 seconds. In addition, the incorporated Bishop patented air gauge supplements the manufacturing process eliminating metering edge phase errors and controlling the edge depth to micron accuracy. “The flexibility of the machine configuration enables its integration into different manufacturing lines giving it high adaptability to existing input shaft manufacturing lines and maximizing the usage of sunk capital," explained Mr Grey. "We can already see the success of this concept in the recently received inquiries for the ISGX. “The input shafts produced on the new grinding machine, in combination with Bishop’s slot-bore-slot soft sleeves produced via its advanced slotting technology, will result in the highest quality hydraulic power-steering valves with exceptionally low valve noise levels”. ANCA managing director Pat Boland (left), Bishop Technology Group managing director Bruce Grey (right)