The Phantom machining center by KRC CNC offers the highest level of production efficiency and machining accuracy giving owners a competitive advantage over the competition.

There seems to be an endless number of CNC Routers marketed for the woodworking industry. To ensure you pick the CNC router best for your facility you must first determine how it will be utilized. There are CNC routers that are very application specific. An example would be a CNC router used to produce kitchen cabinet doors, There are also CNC routers and machining centers that are versatile, allowing a multitude of uses.

Decades ago, prior to the advent of nesting, CNC routers were very typically manufactured with one or two moving tables. One of the primary uses for these routers was in the production of cabinet doors. Twin tables allowed the user to load a table with precut panels while the second table was cutting the program. Multiple spindles on the unmoving bridge allowed for multiple doors to be processed simultaneously.

You have determined a nested based CNC routing machining center is the proper choice based on use in your facility. Now is the daunting task of determining which of the many brands is best for you. A great place to start is to understand which features and specifications affect production efficiency and dependability. There are numerous specifications and features to consider but the following are among the most important.

If you can’t hold a part firmly while drilling and cutting you can’t achieve accuracy and reduce waste. The vacuum hold-down of panels becomes one of the most important machine specifications when comparing brands. Vacuum should be concentrated to the size of the panel being processed. Panels you will process come in a multitude of sizes. Most common in the U.S. are 4x8, 5x9, 5x10, and 5x12. Consider a single zone 5x12 vacuum table processing a 4x8 panel. The 5x12 table has sixty square feet of surface. A 4x8 panel has thirty two square feet of surface. This results in a single zone 5x12 table having twenty eight square feet of open surface and an incredible amount of vacuum loss through the unused portion of the spoilboard. This vacuum loss results in parts that move during the machining process. If you want to efficiently process multiple panel sizes a minimum number of zones should be equal to the number of panel sizes you process. Having additional vacuum zones above the number of panels you process will help to concentrate the vacuum on cut parts and reduce the loss of vacuum as spoil board is exposed during the machining process. It is also critical to make certain you have the proper number of pumps to maximize the size of the vacuum table.

Faster moving axis reduce the amount of time needed to traverse from point A to point B. Saving seconds on travel can add up to a substantial amount of time during the course of a production shift. Incredibly important is the rapid travel time of the Z-axis. A large portion of the machining time when cutting cabinets and closets involves drilling. The Z-axis is slower than the X and Y-axis. Having a faster Z-axis rapid travel will result in reduced cycle times during the machining process.

·       Axis acceleration/deceleration speed

·       Size of main routing spindle

·       Weight and rigidity of the machine

The main routing spindle should be large enough to handle the work load when cutting at the maximum linear cutting speed.  Spindles that are undersized will bog down during the cutting process.

The main routing spindle is one of the most expensive parts on most CNC routers. Features such as vibration and temperature monitoring can save users from costly repairs that result from overtaxing the spindle or out of balance tooling.

A heavier built machine is capable of faster cutting, acceleration/deceleration and cutting speeds than a light-weight machine. The optimal weight a machine should be for rapid travel, cutting and acceleration/deceleration speeds are the result of complex engineering formulas. A heavy machine can also reduce potential vibration but in this instance weight is secondary to a well designed base with vibration dampening features.

The saying time is money is true. There are of course machines that can cut forty panels in an eight hour shift and if that is all you need to cut, the lower price tag of these machines may be appealing but consider cutting that same number of panels in two hours instead of eight hours. The extra six hours of labor can be used for other processes such as edgebanding, doweling, or assembly. The faster and more efficiently you cut and drill the more profitable you will be due to increased production efficiency. It makes little sense to spend an eight hour shift doing something that can be accomplished in two hours. The cost of labor and the reallocated labor hours will often more than offset the higher cost of a machine capable of processing more parts when compared to the cost of a slower CNC.

A higher rpm drill block capable of faster feed rates will increase efficiency. Make certain the drill block can hold the number of drills you need to use on a regular basis.

There are numerous controllers on the market with varying degrees of functionality. The KRC CNC routing machining center offered by Nutek Machinery utilizes German made Beckhoff controls. Beckhoff controls offer a high level of functionality, reliability, and ease of use, setting it apart from other controllers.

The speed of the automatic labeling system if your new nested based cnc routing machining center has one. The automatic labeler is often the bottle neck of a CNC center. Look for an automatic labeler with a ride along printer to reduce axis travel time and reduce the amount of time between placing labels on panels. The labeler is often the bottle neck of the system so make certain the labeler can place a label faster than the machine can cut out a part to optimize the speed of the system. The Phantom by KRC CNC places a label every 4 seconds making it one of the fastest in the industry.

There are numerous other features and specifications that help determine the best cnc routing machining center for your facility but the above features serve as an important place to start in your evaluation.