Critical tool breakage monitoring system takes two seconds to check critical tools thus enabling 100% critical tool monitoring to take place without adding significantly to the part cycle time.
Critical tool breakage monitoring system takes two seconds to check critical tools thus enabling 100% critical tool monitoring to take place without adding significantly to the part cycle time. Hardinge have entered an exclusive agreement with Checkmate Sensors for the sales and marketing of the revolutionary new Checkmate critical tool breakage monitoring system. This system has been proved in operation to extend the possibilities for unmanned running on bar-fed CNC lathes by as much as 100%.

The main advantages of the Checkmate system are:- It takes just two seconds to check the condition of each critical tool thus enabling 100% critical tool monitoring to take place without adding significantly to the part cycle time.

Tool breakage can be detected immediately - eliminating the possibility of subsequent tool and machine damage resulting from drill breakages, a turning, parting, or boring tool failure.

One sub-contractor has increased production by 100% using Checkmate which has enabled them to react immediately to increased Kan-Ban customer call offs without adding any labour costs to supply the increased volumes.

Checkmate is fast in operation (2 seconds per tool) and requires no setting from one part operation to the next.

The Checkmate macro is all that is needed to activate the tool monitoring routine everything else is done automatically by the plc linked to the sensor.

Checkmate can be used to monitor parting tools, drills, taps, turning tools and boring bars for most applications, whichever are critical to the particular operation.

As secondary functions, Checkmate can be set up to give audible or visual signals to indicate that a tool is broken or worn beyond a preset limit, for attracting attention to an unattended machine with a tool fault condition.

Checkmate allows for the gaps in operator attendance at the machine to be used for production with the confidence that Checkmate will stop the process safely in the event of a tool breakage.

Lunch breaks and tea breaks can become as productive as normal working hours, with after hours running generating bonus parts and profits at no extra cost.

Being environmentally friendly, Checkmate can be linked into the machine power switch to save power when a tool breakage is detected.

In the first instance, Hardinge will offer the Checkmate system on new Talent, Elite and Quest machines.

Its first public showing will be at MACH 2004, where Hardinge have come up with a truly novel way of exhibiting a Talent CNC lathe using Checkmate.