Precision wood machining centre uses 28-axis CNC system from NUM

The new MC15 provides very high quality wood machining capabilities and can be equipped with up to 28 axes and a maximum of 6 machining heads, each of which can be fitted with 4 machine tools. Wooden bars with dimensions from 650 cm wide and 300 cm high, and with a variable length of up to 1200 cm and a weight of up to 1.5 tons, can be machined easily and quickly from all sides. Krüsi Maschinenbau AG has a 50-year history of precision high quality wood working machines. It would not have been possible to build visionary wooden structures such as Metz' Centre Pompidou in France, the Tamedia building in Zurich or the Nine Bridges golf club in South Korea without Krüsi CNC machines. Such structures consist of several hundreds of individual parts where it is rare occurrence that any one piece is like another. The precision systems from Krüsi process all wooden elements, regardless of how complex or delicate the construction. Krüsi Maschinenbau employs a workforce of about 20 and, like NUM, is an internationally operating Swiss company with its registered office in Schönengrund in the Appenzeller region – just a few kilometers away from NUM's company headquarters. Apart from high-tech systems for free-form beams, the company’s range of products includes longitudinal circular saws, chalet construction machinery and trimming machines. The initial cooperation between NUM AG and Krüsi Maschinenbau AG took place in the middle of the 80's. At that time, the first fully automatic CNC-controlled trimming machine in the world was successfully brought to market. The now completely newly designed MC15 CNC wood machining centre has been developed jointly as the result of close cooperation between Krüsi and NUM. The highly modern CNC wood machining centre enables workpieces of all kinds to be sawn, milled, planed, chamfered, beaded, drilled and grooved from all sides. The MC15 is suitable for all work pertaining to modern and conventional wood construction engineering, which demands stringent quality and precision. The MC15 is modular in design, i.e. the number of machining heads and even the dimensions of the loading and unloading station can be adapted as required. The current MC15 is itself built on a gigantic scale in order to machine the aforementioned wooden bars at the maximum dimensions of 30 x 60 x 1200 cm. With a length of 28 m, a width of 3 m, and a height of 3 m above the ground and 1 m depth below the floor, the modern CNC wood machining centre cannot be overlooked. In order to move the heavy wooden bars weighing up to 1.5 tons, the X-axis has four motors, two on each side of the balk. These are controlled independently. However, in most cases they are used synchronously. The 6 machining heads are each moved laterally on the Y-axis, each having its own motor. They are mounted on two portals, one above and one below the workpiece. The portals are positioned at the height of two Z axes with 2 motors each. The 6 machining heads, each of which is provided with a spindle, can be fitted with up to 4 tools per head. Alternately, 2 machining heads can continuously machine the wooden bar, one from below and the other from above. The 28 axes are controlled with the help of a NUM Flexium+ CNC controller. Apart from the integrated safety controller, the CNC wood machining centre has NUMDrive X drives to control the axes and SHX single cable motors to drive the axes, as well as an FS192LS touch-sensitive screen to control the machine. All these components come from NUM, since this is the only way that proper and precise working of the machine can be ensured for a machining operation from beginning to end. This newly designed CNC wood-machining centre has already awakened the interest of a number of customers and orders for several machines have already been received. At the industrial Trade Fair for wood in Basel, Holz in 2016, the MC15 will be showcased for the first time to a wide audience. A larger machine on which wider wooden bars can be machined is already in the planning phase. This is always done in order to give customers a competitive edge in an increasingly tough market.