A number of spindle speed, main motor and between-centres capacity improvements - up to 8000mm between centres - have been made to heavy duty CNC lathes.
Ward CNC of Sheffield, the exclusive UK agent for the Hankook Protec range of two-axis horizontal CNC lathes, has revealed a number of spindle speed, main motor and between-centres capacity improvements across the range. In addition, control technology has been standardised to Fanuc 21i-T for the models 5N, 7NA/7NB and 9N. Swing diameters over the bed ranges from 530mm on the Protec 5N to 950mm on the 9N, the largest in the range, while distances between centres now range from 1000mm to 8000mm (instead of 6000mm), respectively.

Spindle speeds range from 7 revs/min (instead of three) to 1,600 revs/min on the 5N and two (instead of four) to 1,000 revs/min (rather than 1,250 revs/min) on the 9N, with main drive motors uprated to 26kW.

Typifying the high quality of build and cost-and-performance specification available from one of South Korea's leading machine tool builders, the construction of Hankook Protec lathes is based on a double-walled and ribbed one-piece meehanite cast iron bed with induction hardened and ground precision slideways for maximum stability and accuracy.

Standard features include servo motors on both axes, four-jaw independent chuck, square tool post with curvic coupling, cooling equipment, machine lighting, two-speed tailstock quill adjustment and infinitely variable feed rates.

Options include various chucks (hydraulic and three-jaw scroll-type), automatic tool post and live centre.

Five different Protec models are available from Ward CNC, including the 9N semi-CNC variant with CNC and dual electronic handwheel control to enable users to quickly move into productive mode since minimal CNC training is necessary.