The current surface/creepfeed production environment demands high productivity, accuracy and the minimum cycle times associated with CNC grinding. But many components whilst being perfect for CNC are currently machined on conventional machines due to a variety of reasons, such as smaller batch requirements which necessitate more frequent set ups, shortage of operator skills, or no budget for high cost CNC solutions. Jones and Shipman already a major supplier of CNC surface/creepfeed grinders has used this customer feedback to produce a grinder that has the required performance levels and also overcomes these perceived shortfalls of traditional CNC.

This machine, the Dominator 624 Easy, offers quicker changeover times, a very easy to use touchscreen control, is priced lower than traditional CNC and is now available and was shown in the US for the first time at IMTS 2006.

Jones and Shipman's latest model in the combined Surface and Creepfeed grinder market the Dominator 624 Easy, is ideally suited to either short batch or long production runs in industries as diverse as aerospace, automotive, electrical, medical and mold and die.

Control in either 3 or 4 axes gives the precision, repeatability and reliability of traditional CNC, for it employs the same axis motion control elements, precision ballscrews driven by GE-Fanuc AC digital servomotors coupled with 0.000004in (0.01 micron) Heidenhain 'Absolute' linear scale feedback.

However the Dominator Easy is faster and simpler to set up via the GE-Fanuc touchscreen using Jones and Shipman icon based grinding and dressing software.

This provides Easy models with the capabilities to interpolate axes simultaneously to provide precision grinding of complex shapes, angles, radii and surfaces, with quick and easy set-up.

Even operators with little or no CNC knowledge quickly become familiar with the 'self teach' software and are soon able to precision grind complex components as well as more standard multi surface work.

Once set up, fully automatic dressing and grinding cycles permit unmanned operation.

Alternatively as with all 'Easy' controlled models the Dominator can function as a simple manually controlled machine with manual dressing and no set-up procedures.

Completed programs can be simply and quickly uploaded to or downloaded from a PC, PDA or Network as required, using JandS software, for storage or recall.

The Dominator Easy is available as a standard model or can be tailored to suit the requirements of individual applications.

A wide range of optional equipment is also offered, including permanent or electro-permanent magnetic chucks, wheel dressers and rotary indexing units.

Wheel dressing is by table mounted fixed diamonds, diamond disc dresser or via a diamond roll dresser.

Rotary indexing units include inline, vertical or cross table mounting, with tailstock if required.

On start-up, the Easy control offers the operator three simple options: Manual mode, Dress mode or Grind Cycle mode.

In manual mode, the Dominator Easy operates as a simple hand operated machine with control for the table and infeed via an electronic handwheel with position shown via a readout on the touchscreen.

Work speeds and feeds are also easily adjustable via the touchscreen, should the operator wish to set an area grind, or auto downfeed in place of manual movement.

When formed diamond rolls are not used to dress the wheel the operator can access Dress mode which offers five standard wheel shape macro's including flat, slot, facing, Vee form and full ISO with one or two diamond discs.

Dressing increments, speeds and frequency allow for roughing and finishing to optimise wheel performance.

A feature in the full software package is 'intelligent roughing out' of the wheel, - the system can automatically quickly and efficiently 'chop out' the basic form and then finish dress using the exact profile.

Wheel dressing can be initiated In or Out-of-Cycle and Dress-On-Demand for plain or complex wheelforms is standard.

The 'Dress-On-Demand' feature basically means that the operator can press the Dress button at any time and the machine will stop wherever it is, dress the wheel with full compensation and return to continue from where it left off.

Grind mode allows from One to 20 grind cycles to be linked as the complexity of the component dictates from cycles including plunge, multi plunge, area (intermittent or continuous), face grind, plunge and face, multi plunge and face, and plunge and creepfeed with or without taper.