Falcon CNC – a “Gem” for Mastertech Diamond Products

Diamond tooling

Mastertech specialises in the production of diamond tooling for cutting aluminium alloys and other non-ferrous materials. Polycrystalline diamond (PCD) inserts and cutting tools are rapidly replacing carbide cutting tools in many nonferrous machining applications, and Mastertech’s expertise in the field ensures that the company is kept busy satisfying the burgeoning demand for these extremely cost effective cutting tools.

Mastertech’s PCD products deliver increased metal removal rates, faster cycle times, reduced scrap levels, tighter dimensional control and improved component surface finish.

Further improving the efficiency of Mastertech’s PCD and CVD (Chemical Vapor Deposition) inserts and cutting tools, the company now offers customised, laseretched 3D chip breaker geometries. Mastertech’s advanced chip breaking geometries help overcome the problematic build-up around tools and workpieces that can be encountered when turning aluminum and other non-ferrous materials.

The company’s laser-etched 3D chip breakers give users a long list of advantages, including extended tool life, reduced tools breakages, improved surface finish and increased machine tool utilisation.

Choosing the right quality control technology

The nature of the challenging industries supplied by Mastertech means that the quality of the company’s products is of paramount importance. To help ensure the continued delivery of premium quality cutting tools and inserts, in addition to utilizing a range of state-of-the-art machine tools, Mastertech also makes regular investments in the best available quality control technology.

Mastertech Production Manager, Kathy Miner explained: “As it is vitally important to precisely adhere to the dimensional specifications of our cutting tools and inserts, we use a range of sophisticated, non-contact inspection technologies in our climate controlled facility. This advanced metrology capability also allows us to verify the absolute accuracy of the complex geometries of our products.“An increased demand for our products has lead to a potential bottleneck in our busy inspection department, to avoid the possibility of inspection hold-ups and to help guarantee our fast delivery times, we recently carried out a search for an efficient measuring technology.

“The required system needed to provide extremely accurate and repeatable results in 3-axis, across our range of high precision measuring applications. In addition, given our ever increasing volume of work, we also wanted a measuring system that had an increased level of automation.

“Having thoroughly investigated the available alternatives, we purchased a Falcon CNC non-contact measuring system from Vision Engineering. Although the other systems performed adequately, the Falcon ticked all of the boxes on our wishlist and proved the easiest to use. It was also a bonus that the advanced Vision Engineering option was one of the least expensive systems that we considered.

Now in constant use, our new Falcon CNC has freed up an employee from standing in front of a comparator and inspecting each cutting tool or insert. Most of our products are now simply loaded on to a pallet and, as the machine does the inspecting, the employee is free to perform other duties.”

“The flexibility of the Falcon allows us to quickly recall our part programs and to perform very accurate, multiple cutting-tool inspection routines in a rapid CNC mode. Among other characteristics, we measure features such as Radii, I.C., H.O.B dimension, angles, height and centrality of holes to I.C.”

Kathy Miner concludes: “As the Falcon CNC is so easy to use and Vision Engineering’s software is so intuitive, our operators had a very short learning curve before they became proficient in the system’s operation.

Our Falcon CNC is now making an excellent contribution towards ensuring the absolute quality of our products, as it can quickly inspect large amounts of high precision work in a CNC mode, we anticipate a rapid return on our investment.”

CNC video measuring system from Vision Engineering

Vision Engineering’s Falcon CNC incorporates over 50 years of proven optical experience in a powerful 3-axis non-contact video measuring system. Falcon delivers cost effective, accurate results with class-leading simplicity and is suitable for both shop floor quality control and for manufacturing inspection applications.

It can undertake tasks from simple, single feature operation to multi-point video edge detection. Advanced features include: high resolution indexed zoom optics that provide high-precision and flexibility, a large field of view enabling easy sample orientation and progressive motorized Z-axis control. Falcon includes surface and substage iris aperture control, controllable quadrant LED illumination and both high and low magnification lens options as standard.