In recent years Midaco has expanded its line of pallet changers to accommodate the need for high volume large precision parts machined to tight tolerances for the aerospace, energy, automotive, medical, military, power generation, oil and gas industries. "These jobs cause significant spindle downtime due to the long and involved process of heavy, large part change over. When combined with crane loading, first article inspection and job interruption tasks, the machining center can be idle up to 70% of the time. Idle machine time means slow production and lost profit per each machine owned. Midaco pallet changers are a simple solution to eliminate unnecessary spindle downtime and rescue lost profit on large as well as small and mid-size machining centers," said a company spokesperson.
Midaco pallet changers are designed to adapt to virtually any brand and model machining center, including large bridge mills, with travels up to 190" x 88" (4,826 mm x 2,235 mm) and with a weight capacity of up to 32,000 lbs. (14,528 kg). Once a pallet or load of parts is complete, the next pallet or job is transferred into the machine automatically from a side mounted shuttle onto the receiver mounted to the VMC table. Because all part loading and job set-up tasks are performed offline (without the operator having to lean into or climb onto the machine), both productivity and ergonomics are maximized. Midaco automatic pallet systems are easily installed on the right side or the left side of a VMC, or both sides for machines that do not move in Y-axis. All automatic pallet changer models offer CE guarding with either a 3-sided door option or light curtain option with light emitters, mirrors and sensors.
Automatic pallet changers are servo driven and are designed to offer a fast pallet change time along with these additional benefits:
- Decrease in load time by switching parts outside of the machine tool
- No overhead obstructions for user crane access
- Operator is not leaning into or climbing around inside a machine tool to clamp and fixture parts on the VMC table
- With multiple dedicated pallets, users have additional set-ups available for their diverse machining needs.
The automatic pallet changer line includes large capacity machines such as:
- Single shuttle systems mounted on the right or left side of a VMC with 2 pallets up to 150" x 31" (3,810 mm x 787 mm) and 8,000 lbs. (3,632 kg) load capacity receiver (with parts evenly distributed).
- Dual shuttle systems (one mounted on each side of the machine) with a total of four pallets up to 150" x 31" (3,810 mm x 787 mm) and 8,000 lbs. (3,632 kg) load capacity receiver (with parts evenly distributed).
- Single/dual shuttle systems with a total of two pallets for machines that do not move in Y-axis, up to 190" x 88" (4,826 mm x 2,235 mm) pallet size and 32,000 lbs. (14,528 kg) load capacity receiver (with parts evenly distributed).
In addition to large capacity automatic pallet changers, Midaco has small and midsize automatic systems, manual shuttle systems up to 60" x 30" (1,524 mm x 762 mm), and manual "lift off" pallet systems. Other products include automatic door systems for mills, lathes and robot loaders, trunnion systems for 4th axis machining without the need for cable management and multi-pallet systems for 5-axis machining.
Application engineers are available to help select the right pallet changer model to increase user output.
For more information contact:
Midaco Corporation
2000 East Touhy Avenue
Elk Grove Village, IL 60007
847-593-8420
www.midaco-corp.com