Longer tool life equals lower production costs, but how do you lengthen tool lifespan? When you understand the factors that compromise tool performance, you can take steps to remove these obstacles from your production line – and optimize part quality along with productivity.
Ban runout
From drilling and milling to reaming and tapping, runout eats tools and increases part scrap rates. Even your spindle can contribute to this particular problem, but the usual suspects begin with your toolholding.
If your collet can’t hang on to the tool and your toolholder doesn’t grip the collet securely, your operation is in trouble. Proper metal cutting results demand that a tool stay rigidly in place throughout the process. Without secure toolholding, vibration creeps in and brings runout with it. Bargain-basement collets and poor-performance toolholders simply don’t cut it.
Beat the heat
Heat-shrink systems make you play a waiting game. Their high-temperature operation leaves your tools too hot to use, so you wait until they cool off. That non-cut time pulls down your productivity, especially if you set multiple tools every day.
Because heat causes metal to expand, heat-shrink toolholders introduce yet another problem. To set up your tools correctly, you have to compensate for this expansion. If your calculations are off, so are your results, and your machining quality will suffer. Even a hint of guesswork means that you can’t count on your toolholders for tool security and repeatable results.
That’s not all. Every time you use a heat-shrink toolsetter, you increase the risk of altering the crystalline structure of your toolholders and annealing them. Now they no longer behave the way they’re designed to perform. They either can’t grip a tool securely any more or won’t release, especially with tools smaller than 0.5″ in diameter. Because every heat-shrink toolholder develops these problems eventually, you’re constantly replacing them to combat the problem, which increases your costs and diminishes your profitability.
Skip the oil
Hydraulic toolholding avoids the heat-related problems of shrink-fit products, but its designs require reliance on an oil-filled chamber to create a secure setup. That oil doesn’t benefit from heat, and as toolholder temperatures climb during machining, hydraulics suffer.
Sooner or later, that heat degrades the performance of these toolholders. As with heat-shrink systems, the operating process itself causes problems that shorten toolholder lifespan. Even before these holders fail altogether, they add runout as they begin to lose their grasp.
Put it all together with powRgrip
When you’re ready to get a grip on toolholding, start with the REGO-FIX powRgrip system. We designed this mechanically based press-fit system specifically to do four things very well.
Achieve great tool security and vibration-free cutting. The powRgrip system holds your tools with an uninterrupted-surface design that’s set with up to 9 tons of force during a 10-second press-in cycle. We guarantee that the TIR of a powRgrip holder and collet will not exceed 0.0001″ for five years or 20,000 toolsetting cycles.
Make tools ready to use immediately. With powRgrip, toolsetting requires three steps. Insert a PG collet into the toolholder, place the cutting tool in the collet, and press one button to clamp the assembly so it stays secure. No heat-expansion guessing game. No cooldown waiting period. No fumes, oil or EMF radiation.
Increase tool life and productivity. When you first start using powRgrip, you’ll notice that your tool life climbs because of better toolholding security. That means you need fewer tools to cut more jobs, which increases operational productivity. But beyond the obvious benefits of increased tool life, accurately secure toolholding enables you to increase your speeds and feeds – and when you speed up the cut, you make more parts in less time.
Make accurate toolsetting simple. That three-step powRgrip setup process requires no torque charts or wrenches, heat-expansion compensation formulas or complicated calculations. You don’t need to be an experienced machinist to use powRgrip. From your most experienced machinist to a new trainee, anyone can learn to operate a powRgrip toolsetter in less than half an hour. That’s the definition of elegant simplicity.
We built our powRgrip system to perform to our high standards – and yours. Elevate your productivity and increase your bottom line with better toolholding that increases the life – and the performance – of your tools.