Microtech Precision Inc. in McMinnville, Ore. has grown from a one-man job shop to a 10-machine, full-service tool and mold shop. All 10, an EDM drill, two CNC milling, and seven EDM machines, are Mitsubishis from MC Machinery Systems. In this MoldMaking Technology article, Microtech Precision founder and president, John Ashton, discusses his business and how working with a single supplier is helpful. Here four key takeaways:
- Ashton on Mitsubishi controls…
“In my experience, the Mitsubishi control is the easiest to teach someone to use. I have trained several operators on the MV-Series wire EDM controller and every single one of them was able to set up and run the EDMs on their own within a few days.”
- On getting production out of a small team…
“We don’t have a lot of staff here, but we sure turn a lot of work out.” An example, he says, is quick turnarounds on prototypes, where they have been able to complete that work in 24 hours. “Sometimes we will do a complete mold build in a week, depending on the complexity of it,” he says.
- On the powerful auto threading feature…
“It is in these applications where the annealing process has dramatically improved the reliability of the re-threading process.” Microtech recently cut a part that had 200, 0.010-inch diameter holes that needed to be threaded. “We used a 0.004-inch wire, ran the program unattended overnight, and in the morning, it was done. The machine threaded, repeatedly, through every hole, and if the wire did break it recovered on its own.”
- On being able to take on new work…
“[The MVR 2400-R Advance] machine has larger travels of 23.6″ x 15.7″ x 12.2″ versus the FA10’s travels of 13.8″ x 9.8″ x 8.7″, so we could put significantly larger parts through our shop. Before we were limited to smaller molds and that machine opened our capabilities up to the point where we started doing more work for other mold shops because we had larger machining capacity.”
To learn more about how Ashton and his company Microtech Precision leverage their partnership with MC Machinery Systems, read the full article here.