Switch to graphite sparks more changes at in-house mould shop

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A surge in productivity

This idea became reality in 2012 when a completely new toolmaking section was created at Escha’s Halver site, including buildings, air conditioning and machines. The main reason for this was the stipulated tolerances. Escha’s mould making seeks to keep imprecision as close to zero as possible so that the one or two hundredths of a millimetre are used to the maximum when producing the connectors. The problem until then were the enormous temperature fluctuations. Differences of a mere two degrees had an intolerable on the workpiece. The new AC system is said to have consigned this to the past to ensure precision.

Productivity, however, has again increased drastically, as the old Mold Center has become an EDM Center. The Speed Hawk was taken out of the operation and fully automated with a large robot. A Gantry Eagle 500 sink erosion machine has been integrated as a replacement for the HSC unit. Even though production has been carried out this way for just six months, this constellation seems sensible, the company said. There are no bottlenecks in erosion or milling. On the contrary: if at all possible, a switch is made to eroding even during finishing. Another benefit of the changes is the measurably higher machine running time. Maik Ullmann, Escha’s toolmaking manager , only sees benefits in this set-up. “Some people might mill what there is to be milled. For us this applies to sink erosion. The preferred procedure here always depends on the range of products.” He noted that the Mold Center makes sense if the milling machine can also be used for hard machining, which is not the case here. The EDM Center lets the company burden the machines with higher workloads and shortens productions routes.

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