24-hour unmanned machining using DELchip

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In Japan, where labor costs are high, in order to supply set screws and parts at a low price, it is necessary to continue manufacturing set screws and parts automatically, unmanned, 24 hours a day, without hassle. Since the set screws and parts processed by our company, which is a specialized manufacturer of small set screws, are machined products, chips (swarfs, shavings) are generated when processed.

When this chips accumulates in the oil pan of a cam-type automatic lathe during long-term machine operation, the flow of cutting oil stops and a large amount of cutting oil accumulates in the oil pan. If this happens, the cutting oil will not return to the tank, and the oil level in tank will drop, which will have the adverse effect of not sufficiently discharging the cutting oil from the oil pump.

DELchip This is a big problem that can lead to a fire. If it cannot be operated for a long time at night, the advantage of the cam-type automatic lathe, which is that the price of set screws and parts will be cheaper, will not be exhibited. Therefore, we created a machine that automatically discharges only chips to the outside of the cam-type automatic lathe.

That is the DELchip of screw conveyor (photo on the right), an automatic chips discharge machine developed and manufactured in-house. (Story in birth of the DELchip)  (Click the right photo to enlarge)

The conveyor screw itself is not visible below the oil level. By intermittently rotating the screw of the conveyor, chips are carried upward and discharged to the outside of the machine, and the cutting oil flows down through the gap between the screws and returns to the original cutting oil tank. The amount of chips produced by a product is not uniform, but a 20-liter can is often filled with chips overnight. For a while, we sold DELchip as a manufacturer, but now we are only maintaining the machines we sold, and we are not selling new ones.

8-type Count Selector In addition, as the manufacturer specializing in small set screws, the result of aiming for both quality improvement and long-term operation with unmanned processing is the Count Selector (8-type CS : lower right photo) and DELchip (upper right photo).
(What is the Count Selector? Click here )  (Click the right photo to enlarge)

Of the 24 hours a day, the daytime is 8 hours and the nighttime is 16 hours, but our cam-type automatic lathes are unmanned for nighttime machining. However, workers are not attached to the machine during daytime processing with an automatic lathe, except when the product set is changed.

Also, on Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays, basically only the following work is required, and the automatic lathe will continue to operate in unmanned operation.

  1. Refill the auto bar with materials.
  2. Inspect the product of the full of products can in the Count Selector (CS) and replace it with an empty can. Then set the lamp of Count Selector (CS) back to one.
  3. Empty the chips collected in the 20-liter can (photo: visible on the back left of the 8-type CS) from DELchip.

A fire alarm device and an automatic fire extinguishing device using halogen gas are installed in the factory just in case during unmanned operation. When the fire alarm is activated, company executives are automatically notified by phone.

Even if we are only aiming to reduce the price of parts, if a fire breaks out, we will not be able to fulfill our supply responsibility as a manufacturer of parts processing to our customers, so we are using caution.

 

Story in birth of the DELchip

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DELchip is the screw-type chips conveyor developed for unmanned operation of automatic lathes.

DELchip is a composite of DEL and chip. Chip means swarfs, scraps, and small pieces. We dubbed "DELchip" because it will be deleted chips from the automatic lathe.

In addition, DELL has the meaning of "small valley", "ravine" or "canyon". That has evolved into the naming of our product "small set screw", DELscrew.

Well, how the DELchip was born, as we wrote in Story in birth of the CS (Count Selector). If an auto bar is introduced and the automatic lathe is operated unattended and continues to operate all night, many products will be produced, but a lot of chips will be generated too.

When this chips accumulates in the oil pan of a cam-type automatic lathe during long-term machine operation, the flow of cutting oil stops and a large amount of cutting oil accumulates in the oil pan. If this happens, the cutting oil will not return to the tank, and the oil level in tank will drop, which will have the adverse effect of not sufficiently discharging the cutting oil from the oil pump.

Therefore, due to the need to discharge chips to the outside of the machine, we developed a screw-type chip conveyor around 1986 and installed it in our own automatic lathes.

Since it was our own equipment at the beginning of development, we suppressed the initial investment and used the pipe material on the outside of the screw by processing it in-house. The difference between the outer diameter of the screw and the inner diameter of the pipe material was about 3 mm to 4 mm, but when the product was caught in the gap, the screw could not rotate. Of course, at thst time, there was no name such as DELchip. I do't know now, what we called it in the company at that time.

DELchip was born as the product when Mr. TODOROKI, who worked for NOMURA Seiki as a salesperson, independently established HOKUTO Co. Ltd. and was asked to sell this screw conveyor.

After that, it was redesigned as a product, and the first DELchip was released in June 1990. Around this time, it coincided with the latter half of the bubble economy, and with Mr. TODOROKI's sales force also contributed, a considerable number of units were shipped. However, in 2008, the 18-year sale ended. Currently, we only parform maintenance the DELchip sold in the past.