Written by Aric Vonasek, Hartwig Sales Engineer
Stop for a moment and take a deep breath… there, feels good right? It’s amazing to think where the industry was just a year ago and where it is now. A year ago we where preparing for IMTS 2010 and things appeared to be headed in the right direction. Today, it’s run as fast as you can because it is BUSY!
Now that we’re all running as fast as we can, the quest to do more with less is more important now than ever. That’s why in this article I’d like to review a piece of equipment we offer that’s a little hidden Gem. It’s called the GX480 APC. This is a 19″ X 16″ vertical machining center which includes an integrated pallet changer.
The American Machine Tool Distributors Association (AMTDA) states that the spindle utilization for a standard VM is around 30%. Obviously this is a very low percentage. This lack of production isn’t going to help when it comes to getting you ahead of getting your parts out the door. By adding the pallet changer spindle utilization increases as high as 70 percent! That’s a huge increase that will instantly make you more profitable with a very quick ROI.
The GX480 APC also brings a lot of capability with it as it can be equipped with various efficiency options such as High Pressure Coolant, Probing, Indexing tables, etc… All of these are options that can help increase your profits on top of what the machine already gives you in the APC
The base machine includes a 20 HP, 10,000 RPM Cat 40 spindle and has rapid traverse rates at 1,417 ipm. Add in the quick 2.2 Second tool change and 6 second pallet change with the machines compact size and you can see that this is a very fast machine.
As you can see, the machine really does bring the whole package and can truly help you do more with less.
