Society of Manufacturing Engineers' (SME) Westec 2007 Wrap-Up · Apr 4, 21:56
This year we finally made it out to “Westec”, the Society of Manufacturing Engineers’ (SME) machine tools and manufacturing tradeshow held in Los Angeles at the Los Angeles Convention Center between March 26 through March 29.
If you’ve ever watched the other show on the Discover channel – “American Hot Rod” (“American Chopper” was their all-time highest rated show, correct? Perhaps their new show “Prototype This!” may also be a hit?..), you may have seen that one episode where Boyd Coddington treks out to Westec only to find some disparaging news about one of this employees (Mike, the CAD/CAM guy). Well, that’s the event we recently attended.
Having been to other events out there, the Westec show was small by comparison. This wasn’t even close to the size of Plastec – another “tec” show that’s hosted in the west coast and elsewhere in the country during other months. This kind of indicates that the US machinery market is shrinking while the demand for plastics-related manufacturing is on the upswing (especially with medial devices and such). We wonder how Plastec will compare with shows like the one held in Beijing, China in mid April: “CIMT” – the China International Trade Show. We suspect that the ones in China will have more manufacturers repping their products. In addition, the southern China shows may have a larger presence yet due to the geographical region where manufacturing is “heavy”. At this point, it’s probably common knowledge where manufacturing is headed… Back to the show.
If positioning on the floor is any indication of the marketing power of companies (i.e. how much they’re willing to spend), then HAAS tops the list. As you walk up the stairs to the South Hall, HAAS makes its presence known with nearly their entire line-up of machinery (that’ll fit through the side doors of the exhibit hall) from their version of the “mini-mill” (which is in no way similar no matter how you look at it) to their 5-axis machines. All the operators wore black “lab coats” and stood at the machines churning out nice take-home tchotchkes like milled steel sample parts weighing over 20lbs! Try lugging that around all day! :)
Hey, it worked for Haas since we’re talking about them (free plug) :)
As we split up and I stood talking to a Haas guy demo’ing one of their SL series lathes, I hear this tremendous grumble and feel the shaking of the floor underneath. It soon became apparent what had happened… One of the SL-30s (I think it was that model) had a mishap – the carriage/tool crashed into the workpiece. You quickly saw Haas technicians coming from all around, rushing towards the lathe. As the door opened you saw the magnitude of the damage: the steel blank was de-chucked from the chuck and was held in place by perhaps two of the jaws and the tool that had been inserted. The operator had little to say as his face swelled from some measure of embarrassment (who wouldn’t?). That was an interesting way to get acquainted with the show and Haas.
After checking out all of the booths many times over and having some interesting discussions with the techs and sales people present, people started pointing out some arguable debating points: Haas machinery uses linear bearings/slides only, while other manufacturers such as Fadal, Mazak to name a few, use both linear bearings as well as box ways – depending on the machine. The general consensus was that linear bearings are better for fast acceleration and traverse/rapid speeds while box ways, due to their increased rigidity, is better suited for hogging away materials such as Titanium. OK, at this point, it all sounds somewhat vague, but I suppose this makes sense. BTW, please feel free to comment on this!
The more trips around the booths we all made, it all became even more apparent that there were only a few companies that had innovative products. One such company had a product that was a year in the making (sorry, nothing in the “hobby” size) – a screwless insert tool. Normally, in order to change an insert, you’d have to get that tiny allen head or torx wrench and wrench on the screw to tighten/loosen it. At a few bucks a piece, stripping one of these screws is a pain in terms of productivity and your checkbook. This company uses a pretty ingenious cam-lock-style mechanism that’s internal to the tool. With a push of a button, the insert holder pops and releases the insert. Pushing it back down lock the insert in place. More on this later…
Another company that stuck in our collective minds was a machinery builder that had a smallish-sized 3-axis mill that was making die molds with two mating halves (forgot to get that sample – it was quite amazing!). The machine used linear motors instead of ballscrews and the like to eliminate backlash altogether (we’ll have to check on this claim some more). It was nonetheless spectacular to see a 1.5” tool steel block being machined with a tiny bit spinning at well over 30k with high precision that the two halves mated perfectly and the surface finish refined.
It’s always great fun to see chips fly, but unfortunately only a limited number of companies were doing that. Most had machines running but cutting air. It would have been nice to show to some pictures, but the organizer didn’t allow them.
At the end of the day, we took some free-bee paper weights home courtesy of Haas, a bottle opener that was bent on Trumpf’s new press brake (it only occurred to us what it was when a co-worker mentioned this right around “Miller Time”), and a sinking feeling that the end of manufacturing is closer than the economists predict here in the United States. Perhaps it was just the lack of pomp and circumstance that’s usually part of any tradeshow. Or, perhaps the venue was too large for a show this size. We’ll see. Until then, we’ll continue to make chips if for no other reason than to enjoy the sights and sounds of chips flying.
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