A Mechanical Workshop milestone

© ASTRON Mechanical Department

3 weeks ago, the day finally arrived on which we got to meet our new 4800kg steel friend. After months of preparations, in the early morning of Thursday the 11th of July the Italian transporters arrived to unload and setup our new 5-axis CNC milling machine Emco MaxMill 630.

Equipped with the essential power, capabilities and tooling to make our engineering dreams come true. In contrast to its predecessor (which served for over 18 years!) it is able to machine in 5 axes in a single setup (X, Y, Z, B and C) and is equipped with a 630 x 500 mm massive swivel-rotary table and a charger turret for 30 automatically loadable milling, drilling, and measuring tools.

For transporting the 3x2x2.5m machine within the ASTRON building to its final location of duty, we had to make some sacrifices; break away - and rebuild – a 5m long office wall and two additional doorways. (thank you for your patience and understanding, Martijn)

Many thanks go out to all who were involved in the processes of reconnaissance, budgeting, transport, technical preparations and hard- and software setup.

Once we as operators have passed the steep learning curve of mastering this beast, we together will be able to engineer and build a broader range of products with larger volume and in particular: increased complexity.