New Products
AutoDrill – New Products
Mini Hex Nuts for ER Style Heads
April 22nd, 2013
posted by AutoDrill
Recently, a customer needed a multiple spindle head for closely spaced holes. However, their shop really did not like using standard mini hex nuts (ER8m, ER11m, ER16m, ER20m, ER25m).
AutoDrill sought out a vendor who could make a hex style nut to go on the fine threads of an mini-nut style spindle. Success!
Hex Style ER Mini-Nut
Please CONTACT US to discuss your application and receive prompt product cost, literature and technical help.
What in the world is an AO taper?
April 18th, 2013
posted by AutoDrill
For those of you in the metalworking or even woodworking industries, there are common terms and items that are easily recognizable. They might include:
- Morse Taper
- Jacobs Taper
- R8 Taper
- CATxx or ISOxx taper
- etc.
Now… Without going to Google and cheating, do you know what an AO taper is – sometimes called an A-O taper? Either did one of our engineers when he received a call in mid-2012 from a customer looking for a unique solution to their manufacturing situation. He hung up the phone, turned to the other engineers in the room and said, “What in the world is an AO taper?” …It took us a few minutes to find some data on it but took a week or so to actually get accurate specifications on the taper for the project. It seems everyone in the industry had hand-drawn specification drawings from the 1940′s and 1950′s only.
Here is what we eventually settled on – and what worked perfectly for the customer:
AO or A-O Optical Taper
The customer creates optical lenses for various industries. Well, part of their process is to work on the lenses in a way we can’t describe because it’s proprietary, but involves an AutoDrill product with an AO taper spindle.
The basic steps that take place in their facility include:
- Drill out cores from raw material using a core drill that is 8″ long and 1″ in diameter
- Slice the core into wafers so they can be processed as individual parts later
- Generate or form the optical lenses from the wafers
- Bevel the edges with a special beveling tool
AO Taper Equipped Head
This customer creates lenses out of sapphire, glass, plastic and quartz. The tooling they use is generally diamond impregnated and they even do some of the coating processes in house.
Please CONTACT US to discuss your application and receive prompt product cost, literature and technical help. We are now very familiar with the AO taper and can assist you in your optical processing needs.
Custom Four Spindle Drill Unit Head for Drill Press or Selffeeding Drill
January 16th, 2013
posted by AutoDrill
This multi-drill spindle head was made for a customer who needed to make four holes in one shot. The goal was to be able to make a specific four hole pattern for their application reliably and repeatedly over a long period of time.
The volume of parts made was very high and the head was made to standards well above what was actually needed. This should result in a very long lifespan of the drillunit head.
Gang drill heads such as these have hardened helical gearing inside and generally require a light greasing from time to time via conveniently located grease fittings.
We can offer these devices with as few as 1 or 2 spindles or as many as 35+. We can mount them on Bridgeport machines, drill presses or column drills, mills, CNCs selfeeding drills, pneumatic drills, motors, etc. We delight in solving your application challenges.
Four Spindle Drill Head
Please CONTACT US to discuss your application and receive prompt product cost, literature and technical help.
AutoDrill Multi Spindle Heads
January 11th, 2013
posted by AutoDrill
We have a large selection of multi spindle heads to satisfy your drilling & tapping needs.
We can offer fixed spindle drill & tap heads:
We can offer adjustable gear driven drill & tap heads:
We can offer universal joint drill & tap heads:
Universal Arm Head
Please CONTACT US to discuss your application and receive prompt product cost, literature and technical help.
Sometimes Simple is Simply Better
August 13th, 2012
posted by AutoDrill
Often, potential customers call us with needs that we can meet in multiple ways…
A few weeks ago, a customer called and asked about drilling a single hole, over and over again into a soft piece of wood. They wanted an AutoDrill “no stroke” drilling unit so that they could mount it to a table top and manually feed the wooden part into the spinning tool. They would run this system for hours a day and the volume would depend on just how fast their “staff team member” could feed the parts. That poor employee must have become the most bored to death… Er… Ahem… Wrong direction.
After talking to the customer for about five minutes, we realized that the holes were small enough, and the tolerances “loose” enough that they essentially just needed a reliable way to spin a drill “bit” for hours a day. They would provide a guard that moved with the work piece so that the user couldn’t drill a hole in their hand (important!) as well as a way to evacuate the wood chips from the table top surface.
Other competitors on the market would have offered them a non-stroking drill that was similar to their full featured models at a slightly discounted costs (this is how people in our industry get rid of parts that don’t fit, etc!) The AutoDrill salesman was honest enough to admit that this was his first thought too. …But then he remembered making a similar custom set-up for another customer a few years ago.
Here is what we ultimately offered this new customer:
Motor Mounted Chuck
- A custom ER style chuck to mount onto the keyed 5/8″ motor shaft (less than $250)
- A simple three phase motor with a mounting base (provided by customer). Easily replaceable by the customer and certainly an industry standard item. (The item above is a sample photo and not the actual unit)
Total solution cost from AutoDrill? Well… You can do the math. We saved the customer a lot of money!
Sometimes simple is simply better!
Please CONTACT US to discuss your application and receive prompt product cost, literature and technical help.
