China five-axis builders: shortlist by loaded sweep

“Five-axis” covers machines that never compete

The builders below share a label, not a work zone. A micro cell with 78 mm of X travel and a horizontal machine rated for a 1.5-tonne part both appear under five-axis. Put the largest part, its fixture and the clamping height beside the published table, load and sweep figures before comparing builders.

Long linear travel does not rescue a part that is too wide for the rotary sweep. On the V-400U, for example, X and Y are 700 mm, but the work sits on a Ø350 mm table that must tilt. The swept diameter of part plus fixture is usually the first limit.

Ask what the table carries when it is tilted

Jirfine publishes 150 kg with the V-400U table level and 100 kg tilted. Many catalogues give a single figure without the angle or centre-of-gravity height it assumes. On GROB’s G350, adding the pallet changer lowers the published table load from 400 to 340 kg. Kede states the KHMC63 U 1500 kg rating as a maximum workpiece mass; fixture weight and centre of gravity still need confirming.

Weigh the part with its fixture, vise or tombstone and estimate how far the combined centre of gravity sits above the table. Then ask the builder for permissible load, tilting moment and inertia at the angles your program uses. A heavy fixture that is fine flat can exceed the trunnion’s limit at full tilt.

Get simultaneous motion written into the control line

Some parts only need each face presented once and clamped, the 3+2 approach. Impellers, blades, ports and blended surfaces typically need all five axes moving together with tool-centre-point control. Neway describes VM450F as X, Y, Z, B and C simultaneous. GROB describes five-axis simultaneous interpolation on the G350.

Brochure text and parameter tables do not always agree. Conprofe’s UVC400-5AXIS page describes Siemens ONE with five-axis simultaneous motion and RTCP as standard. The same page’s table lists a Huazhong 918D control as standard and Siemens 808D as an option. Kede’s pages label the KHMC rotary axes inconsistently. In both cases the quotation, not the brochure, must state the control model, software release, simultaneous five-axis and RTCP/TCPM options, and the axis diagram your CAM post will use.

Ask for a postprocessor and kinematic model you can load into your CAM simulation. A builder who cannot supply them is effectively quoting 3+2 positioning, whatever the brochure headline says.

Your longest holder sets the real reach

Tool length, the fixture and the tilted table compete for the same space. Conprofe lists 200 mm maximum tool length and Ø70 mm with a full magazine on the UVC400. GROB lists 365 mm for the G350 single-disc magazine; the double-disc version allows 550 mm only for tools spanning both discs. The Micro5 sheet allows Ø18 mm tools, or Ø40 mm with neighbouring pockets empty, on HSK-EZ15.

Model the stock, fixture, longest holder and cutter together, then run them through every programmed tilt and rotation. Jingdiao’s profile applies this test to its MRA600: its published A and C ranges say nothing about whether the cutter can reach each face once the part is clamped. Do the same for each shortlisted machine and ask the builder to confirm clearance at the worst position.

Send each builder the same part, not the same axis count

A comparable five-axis RFQ includes the STEP model, material, stock, fixture concept, total loaded mass and centre-of-gravity height. Add the longest tool assembly, the features needing simultaneous motion versus indexed faces, the CAM system, and the tolerances you will measure. With that, each builder has to quote a control, options package and work zone against your part.

Ask for a trial on a representative feature, with the measurement method and environment agreed beforehand. Positioning figures in a catalogue are machine test references, not part tolerances. This page does not offer verified price ranges; options, controls and tooling packages differ too much between quotations.