North American Introduction of Mazak Additive Machine
A company open house and technology event included the North American debut of an Integrex hybrid.
The Mazak Integrex model capable of both CNC machining and additive manufacturing made its North America debut. The machine was introduced in Japan last year.
The machine’s two different additive heads are visible in this photo. The heads provide the capability for high-speed metal deposition as well as metal deposition that is finer and slower.
These display parts illustrate features added to a workpiece, then machined to the same precision as the rest of the part. In this case, both the original material and the added material are 316 stainless. A different sample part showed Inconel features deposited onto a stainless steel workpiece.
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At Mazak’s Discover 2015 event at its North American headquarters in Florence, Kentucky, the company showed its Integrex i-400AM machine for the first time in North America. The machine is a multitasking hybrid capable of not only various CNC machining operations but also metal deposition for additive manufacturing. On this machine, a workpiece can be machined, then given new features through additive manufacturing, and those new features can themselves be machined—all in a single cycle.
Company President Brian Papke discussed this machine during remarks to press members at the opening of the Discover event. In many cases, he says, “the most efficient uses of additive manufacturing will be as part of a blend of manufacturing capabilities.” Additive is a logical extension of multitasking, or the aim to produce a part complete in a single setup. And it likely will not be the last capability for which this is true, he says. “Other processes, just like additive, could also be woven into done-in-one,” he says.
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