Expanded manufacturing facility

On a hilltop near the town of Bergara, Spain, machine tool manufacturer Soraluce opened its doors to inaugurate a new assembly plant for milling, boring, multitasking, and automated solutions. The assembly plant will boost production capacity and has Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) GOLD certification for its sustainability. The Basque company produces its own energy with solar panels fitted at its production plants, reducing electricity consumption by 30%.

Also showcased at the newly opened plant were Soraluce’s latest Performance Line milling machines.

Modular structure

Performance Line products feature three families of machines, with three different architectures, all based on a common structure. The families share major features, such as the column, saddle, ram, and heads, built using a modular design to provide reliability, ease of maintenance, and flexibility to customer needs.

The Performance Line shares design principles found in the Soraluce Productivity and Heavy-Duty machine ranges, combining a cast iron structure, linear guiding systems, and passive and active damping technology.

Soraluce has applied decades of experience obtained from their larger models to provide more precision and reliability: direct-drive inline spindle motor with continuous power of 43hp (32kW) and 7,000rpm in the ram and a water-cooling system for thermal stability.

There’s a choice of milling heads: High performance automatic-rotation mechanical heads, with high rpm and high precision and air-oil mist or water-cooled for maximum head stability and precision; universal heads with a choice of indexing; and compact-design orthogonal heads with 1º x 1º indexing. Soraluce also offers its own, similar range of high-torque multitasking heads.

Performance Line machines can be integrated with a single-axis vertical high-speed head providing continuous positioning by torque motor (C-axis) for 4- or 5-axis continuous machining.

The range features the Soraluce Smart HMI, a smart, intuitive interface for managing the work area running the NC program in parallel with an area for developing apps that can connect the machine to the customer’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) software or monitor energy consumption.

In addition to the standard Heidenhain TNC 640 control, machines can be fitted with the Heidenhain TNC7 control system with its easier to use operator interface.

TA, bed-type milling machine

The TA now offers greater capacity, power, torque, chip removal, and ergonomics. Several configurations are available, including square or round table, as well as multitasking abilities.

The machine features standard peripheral guarding with easy front and rear access to the work area. A flexible arm allows the CNC controller to be positioned at the front or rear of the machine, offering the operator the best view of the cutting tool in all machining operations.

FA, floor-type boring mill

When additional longitudinal (X-axis) travel is required, floor-type architecture offers a solution. FA milling machines can be configured with floor plate, rotary table, or rotary-traveling table, with one or more multitasking tables (milling and turning), and with a portable rotary table that can be positioned vertically (with a tailstock) or horizontally. Customers also have the option of duplex configuration – which allows machining with two spindles simultaneously.

Floor type milling machines offer a minimal footprint with a compact design allowing for multiple work zones when using pendulum machining.

The FA can be set up with a pit or at floor level, and the floor plate or work table can be raised to the level of loading/unloading, offering similar ergonomics to fixed-bed machines.

SA, fixed-table traveling column milling machine

The SA family provides manufacturers of medium to large workpieces a range of machines offering high reliability, precision, and flexibility. It features a fully enclosed machine traveling column and fixed table sharing the same base. The work area is fully guarded, with complete front access to the workpiece, workpiece at user height, a CNC controller on a sliding guide in front of the machine, and integrated swarf collection system.

SA machines are available with a fixed table, rotary milling, or milling/turning table of 1,000mm (39") diameter on one side of the table, or two milling or milling/turning tables at either end of the machine.

This range is floor-fitted and doesn’t require an elaborate foundation.

Soraluce Performance Line

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