Update from the workshop

 

This week we had a flurry of activity in our Brookvale workshop. Our Kern Micro HD had it's first field-service upgrade. It's difficult to describe how complex and engineered this milling machine is, but I'll give it a shot. The Micro HD has at least 7 discrete, but interconnected systems. The control/software, kinematic structure, pneumatics, hydraulics, tool changer, cooling circuit and measurement systems. Each of these systems operate in harmony with each other. They talk to each other, give feedback to each other, influence how and when they need to be switched on, off or change. The easiest analogy is the human body. Just like a person, the Micro HD has a skeleton, nerves, a brain, muscles, a digestive system and so on. This week, we did some major work on updating most of these systems, and introducing new features. This happens very rarely for machines in the field. The higher the complexity of these systems, the greater the risk that an update or upgrade could degrade the stability of the system. So, for most machines in the world, they never receive "upgrades". They leave the factory in a stable condition, and you hope that nothing changes in the life of the machine. Because of this risk, we had to get the top guy at Kern to come and install these options. Enter Alex Stauder, the Head of Applications at Kern. With 23 years of experience (Kern is his first and only job!), he has worked in nearly every department. From actually building the machines, to building the software, to tweaking processes for customers. Alex flew in from Germany to install and upgrade our machine, and there was no better person to handle the task!

Our upgrade wasn't mechanical, in fact not one screw on the machine had to change. Our upgrade was deeply rooted in the software of the machine. It's really difficult to describe what the upgrade was in words- the best way is to show you: Here is a video of what our milling machine can now do. https://www.instagram.com/p/C2gQ7soPz6g/ Our 5 axis machine became a 6 axis machine. The rotating tool you see in the video, with the yellow tape attached to it, usually spins at 42 thousand revolutions a minute. This is amazing for using tools that are meant to rotate, but it's binary. Either the spindle is spinning, or it's not. With this upgrade, we now have complete control of the direction that the spindle is facing at all times. So, instead of rotating super super fast while moving, we can now rotate incredibly precisely while moving!

The big benefit for us is yet to come. A lot of testing and trials are coming soon, but if you let your imagination roam, I'm sure you can see in which direction we are heading! Josh