Gear Honing

HMX-400 A history of seven years' development

The new gear honing machine HMX-400 represents the many years of research and development work of Fässler, a Swiss Quality Company. It is 1996: Fässler initiates a research project with the Federal Technical University of Zurich, the ETH.

Theme: investigation and optimisation of the gear honing process

The history of development of the new Fässler Honing machine HMX-400 commences. We at Fässler were certain that notwithstanding its many years of successful use, or perhaps simply because of this, the gear honing process still had enormous development potential. As a pioneer in the field of gear honing, Fässler's wealth of experience goes back more than 25 years. In the mean time the favourable properties of honed gears have been scientifically proven and recognized. More on The Honing Advantage.

Namely:

• Extremely quiet running
• High wear resistance
• No thermal loads
• Excellent profile and flank forms

Scientific Argument

Scientific work with the ETH took place on a give and take principle. So on the one hand, Fässler contributes its many years' experience and in return obtains new knowledge for simplifying machine operation and improving the process reliability. The consequence of this assignment is to grapple with new concepts. Concepts in which the machine, the drives and also the tool materials play a fundamental role. It was the answering of these questions posed in the 1996 research project that has given birth to the main features of the HMX-400.

Advanced Design Programs

It is not only a good machine tool which is important for a good overall honing result. Optimally designed and manufactured tooling and clamping fixtures are also important. Which is why Fässler developed the most advanced design programs for this research. Today this research now permits the optimum tool design together with an analysis of the process from the raw to the final state. Factors considered for tool design and maximising gear honing. The desire for increasingly higher performance and machining accuracy of the honing process had set in motion another line of development. Hence, the HMX-400 uses innovatory hollow shaft linear direct drives for tool and work-piece drives. This considerably increases the machine performance capacity, proving beneficial in the improvement of dividing errors and process reliability.

Demands on the machine structure imposed by the high power density levels were able to be fully optimised with the aid of FEM analyses (Finite Element Method). The construction of a laboratory test rig for the ETH Zurich formed the basis for the machine concept of the new HMX-400. This rendered it possible to run many test series and try out numerous ideas.

Double Spindle Principle

Tailored to serious production the Fässler HMX-400 offers the unique double spindle principle. This reduces non-productive times by as much as 75% and also permits very flexible additional applications with out increasing the cycle time. Examples of such applications are a two-flank running check or parts cleaning.

The high precision work-piece spindle rotary table, together with the dynamic headstock drive, guarantees minimum changeover times and maximum support for the automation system. This enormously reduces the costs for automation systems and also saves space.

Operator Friendly Interface

The modern Siemens 840-D control concept permits simple machine operation via a graphical display and user interface. This has greatly influenced the interaction between tool and process design programs and the machine program. Many process parameters are automatically optimised and help the operator to run the process efficiently even without detailed background knowledge. More over, thanks to the Fässler Software the input data is reduced to a minimum.