Five-Axis Grob G550T Tightens Cycle Times and Accuracies

The Grob G550T five-axis machine significantly cuts aerospace cycle times and tooling costs, as seen in through the example of Grob customer Honeycutt Manufacturing.

“We were able to reduce the machining setup operations from six to two with the Grob, cutting cycle times by 50% and reducing our tooling costs 60-70%,” says Nick Honeycutt, Honeycutt’s general manager. Within 30 days of the shop buying its first Grob, it bought another and began planning an addition to house even more.

Honeycutt uses the Siemens Sinumerik 840D sl control with its Grob machines. After a few training sessions, Honeycutt’s operators produced their first parts on the Grob to spec on the first day of its run time. The control also allows Honeycutt to maintain CAD/CAM-software continuity with Dassault SolidWorks and Open Mind Hypermill.

“Siemens is one of several controls we use on our machines, but is the only control for special complex machining options we’ve developed on our machines, including multi-tasking mill-turn, skiving (used for gear production), high-end hobbing, crossfeed spindle configurations and more,” says Andy Krupp, universal machine applications engineer at Grob.

While much of the aerospace work at Honeycutt uses high-removal-rate aluminum, the Grob-Siemens combination also provides benefits with other materials. Honeycutt says the G550T’s power, combined with the 0.0006” accuracies and 32-microinch Ra finishes it achieves on jobs involving Inconel and Titanium, have won the machine shop jobs.

“GROB is a global supplier to the automotive, aerospace, mold-and-die and energy industries,” Krupp says. “We’re involved in many emerging technology developments such as e-mobility, too. We build our five-axis machining centers for our metalworking customers, plus we can supply full automation cells to meet their specific production requirements. This can be a dedicated, high-volume solution or a highly flexible solution for a low-volume, high-mix production.”