“Instead of spending fifteen minutes to half an hour aligning work pieces to the machine, we use Hurco Conversational Probing and spend two minutes to align the machine to the work piece.
"Hurco’s DXF software not only saves programming time at the machine, but also in CAD detailing. There is no need for 100% dimensioning of every hole or profile.”
—Bob Kelsey, Owner
TK & Associates was established in 1986 as a three-man prototype shop supporting the automotive brake industry. By dedicating itself to supplying quality services in a timely and cost-effective manner, TK & Associates has evolved into a top-notch tool, die, and precision machining house, while maintaining and strengthening its roots in prototyping.
TK’s team of skilled employees work with its customers from concept to production—CAD design, prototype parts, inspection fixtures, production tooling, runoffs and actual production.
Key Hurco Advantage: DXF-translation Software
All of the precision machining at TK is performed on six Hurco CNCs—one knee mill and six machining centers—equipped with the UltiMax control. A seventh Hurco, a 19-year-old bed mill equipped with a Bx control, is still used in prototype work.
TK uses Hurco’s DXF translation software extensively to further reduce the time to program parts. This software allows DXF files to be downloaded directly from CAD to the Hurco UltiMax control. Then with Hurco’s easy-to-use English-language prompts, TK’s Hurco machines can quickly combine CAD-generated features to create a part program—no knowledge of conventional g-code is required Another benefit of Hurco’s DXF software is time saved in CAD detailing. By using Hurco DXF at the machine, 100% dimensioning of every hole location or milling profile at the CAD station is unnecessary.
Key Hurco Advantage: Automatic & Manual Pallet Changers
The addition of automatic and manual pallet changers has also decreased setup times, particularly in the precision machining of inkanel castings for jet engines and steam generator turbines. By presetting castings outside the machine, setup times dropped to zero, which allowed volumes to increase immensely.
Key Hurco Advantage: Conversational Probing
TK is particularly pleased with Hurco Conversational Probing. In order to accommodate variances in casting for the steam generator turbines each work piece had to be aligned before machining. Originally, dial indicators were used to true-up each casting, fixture, and pallet to the machine’s axes, which could take fifteen minutes to half an hour.
With Hurco Conversational Probing, fixed points are picked up on the fixture and the probe software automatically adjusts the tool path to the resulting skew angle. This minimizes setup time and eliminates program edits to accommodate variances in castings. For TK, the addition of Hurco’s Conversational Probing has meant improved part quality, elimination of data input errors, reduced scrap and increased part throughput. As a result, they experienced only a nine-week return on investment for the Probing Package.
Summary
In the hands of skilled and motivated employees, Hurco gives TK a competitive advantage. Machinists can sequence all the value added steps needed to machine a part—tool path generation, tool setup, part setup and part inspection. Whether the part information comes from a sketch, blueprint, or CAD-generated DXF file, the English language prompts of UltiMax lead the machinist through a list of easy to understand machine part features that can be quickly combined to create a part program. The standard graphics feature immediately verifies the tool path data and eliminates the need to dry run a part. This results in significant cost savings by reducing the time to manufacture the first part and the time to convert from one part run to another.