SCHUNK mod­ules are installed at a num­ber of pro­duc­tion loca­tions at Neher. For the pro­duc­tion of cus­tomized spe­cial tools for the auto­mo­tive indus­try, the com­pa­ny in Ostra­ch-Ein­hart uses var­i­ous tool­hold­ers, chuck jaws, lathe chucks and vis­es from SCHUNK.

As a top per­former, Neher needs reli­able pro­duc­tion com­po­nents to meet the high cus­tomer require­ments for both tool clamp­ing and work­piece clamp­ing. “We need top qual­i­ty in any case,” says Tobias Niess, Devel­op­er at Neher. All the more so when it comes to par­tic­u­lar­ly demand­ing parts pro­duc­tion, such as the addi­tive man­u­fac­tur­ing of high­ly spe­cif­ic tools made of met­al. This is where the VERO‑S NSE-HT mini 88–20 quick-change pal­let sys­tem comes into focus. The clamp­ing sys­tem for use in high-tem­per­a­ture appli­ca­tions remains unaf­fect­ed by the finest dusts, abra­sive mate­ri­als and even con­tin­u­ous immer­sion baths.

Plac­ing the build­ing plate in the quick-change pal­let sys­tem on the machine table – four quick-change pal­let mod­ules, in the cen­ter the ther­mal zero point.

Prepa­ra­tion for addi­tion­al work­piece machin­ing on the milling machine – once again on the same inter­face, a clamp­ing sta­tion with “VERO‑S NSE mini 90–25” quick-change pal­let mod­ules.

Com­po­nent machin­ing in the rough milling cen­ter relies on the TENDO E com­pact tool­hold­er and the work­piece clamped on a clamp­ing sta­tion with quick-change pal­let mod­ules – both from SCHUNK.

One inter­face across the entire process chain. At the end, the sub­strate plate pass­es through qual­i­ty assur­ance.

There are chal­lenges beyond what clamp­ing sys­tems need to with­stand in every­day, con­ven­tion­al machin­ing process­es. “We can’t imag­ine our pro­duc­tion process­es with­out this quick-change pal­let sys­tem,” says Tobias Niess. And he knows exact­ly what he’s talk­ing about.

Quick-change pal­let sys­tem as the basis for pre­ci­sion

He and his team over­see 3D met­al print­ing at the com­pa­ny. For this pur­pose, the com­pa­ny pur­chased the mod­ern Lasertec 30 Dual SLM from DMG Mori for gen­er­a­tive man­u­fac­tur­ing by selec­tive laser melt­ing (SLM). This “3D print­er” can be used to gen­er­a­tive­ly man­u­fac­ture high­ly com­plex com­po­nents with dif­fer­en­ti­at­ed func­tion­al inte­gra­tion in a pow­der bed heat­ed up to 200 degrees Cel­sius. This so-called hybrid print­ing process, melt­ing work­pieces onto pre­fab­ri­cat­ed com­po­nents, is also achieved at Neher. In this process, geo­met­ri­cal­ly sim­ple work­piece com­po­nents are man­u­fac­tured con­ven­tion­al­ly, and the com­plex geome­tries are then addi­tive­ly “print­ed” onto the hybrid blank. For this pur­pose, the clamp­ing pins of the quick-change pal­let sys­tem are mount­ed direct­ly on the hybrid blank.

This approach uti­lizes the advan­tages of both process­es and sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduces man­u­fac­tur­ing costs. The run­time of the 3D print­er is short­ened, mean­ing it can move on to the next job faster.

A pre­req­ui­site for the pre­cise and effi­cient pro­duc­tion of these kinds of work­pieces is the absolute­ly pre­cise clamp­ing of the sub­strate plate on which the prod­uct is addi­tive­ly built in the machine room. This is where the VERO‑S NSE-HT mini 88–20, which SCHUNK designed and laid out specif­i­cal­ly for appli­ca­tions in 3D met­al print­ing, stands out.

Heat resis­tant and per­fect for 3D met­al print­ing

“This clamp­ing mod­ule is spe­cial,” says Devel­op­er Ben­jamin Hirz. “While con­ven­tion­al quick-change pal­let sys­tems can be used up to 60 degrees Cel­sius, this clamp­ing sys­tem with­stands the high tem­per­a­tures of the steel pow­der melt­ing process.” “With­out the VERO‑S NSE-HT mini 88–20, we would not be able to imple­ment the ther­mal­ly demand­ing man­u­fac­tur­ing process. It always reli­ably guar­an­tees us the fixed posi­tion on the machine table side,” explains Tobias Niess.

“We can't imagine our production processes without this quick-change pallet system!”

Tobias Niess,
Devel­op­er at the Neher Group

At Neher, four VERO‑S NSE-HT mini 88–20 mod­ules are used, as well as a VERO‑S NE-HT mini 36 quick-change pal­let unit in the cen­ter. The quick-change pal­let unit defines the ther­mal zero point for large sub­strate plates via a cen­tric clamp­ing pin. The clamp­ing itself takes place simul­ta­ne­ous­ly via the remain­ing four clamp­ing pins. An inte­grat­ed spring assem­bly secures the clamp­ing per­ma­nent­ly and is self-lock­ing– air is only required for the open­ing process.

Seal­ing con­cept keeps out dust and abra­sive mate­ri­als

The sec­ond major chal­lenge for the clamp­ing sys­tem is that it is per­ma­nent­ly exposed to the high­ly abra­sive mate­ri­als. But the SCHUNK seal­ing con­cept makes it pos­si­ble to resist the finest met­al dusts that pen­e­trate even the tini­est crevices.

“Our seal­ing con­cept is so reli­able that the clamp­ing sys­tem is even suit­able for immer­sion baths,” con­firms Ben­jamin Hirz. “Under all of these envi­ron­men­tal con­di­tions, a per­ma­nent­ly high force is main­tained on the clamp­ing slide, which ensures absolute process reli­a­bil­i­ty. Even if fine met­al pow­der gets into the cut­ting area, the clamp­ing slides do not get blocked. The mod­ule clamps reli­ably.”

Long life span

One sin­gle VERO‑S NSE-HT mini 88–20 has been run­ning on the 3D met­al print­er at Neher for three years. “Absolute­ly reli­able and trou­ble-free and one hun­dred per­cent pre­cise,” Tobias Niess empha­sizes. Despite the long machin­ing times of sev­en to ten hours in 3D met­al pro­duc­tion, SCHUNK states that the ser­vice life of a quick-change pal­let sys­tem used in this way is approx­i­mate­ly ten years.

Spe­cial tools man­u­fac­tur­er

Among oth­er things, Neher man­u­fac­tures stan­dard and spe­cial tools as well as com­po­nents for a wide vari­ety of appli­ca­tions, includ­ing pow­er­train mod­ules for the auto­mo­tive indus­try.

In addi­tion to mod­ern CNC-con­trolled turn­ing and milling machin­ing cen­ters, sev­er­al 3D met­al print­ers as well as cor­re­spond­ing mea­sur­ing tech­nol­o­gy have been in use for sev­er­al years, which is why the com­pa­ny can pro­duce a wide vari­ety of cus­tomized com­po­nents in light­weight struc­ture with func­tion­al inte­gra­tion.

The one-man oper­a­tion found­ed in Ostra­ch in 1990 as Neher Dia­mantwerkzeuge has devel­oped into a state-of-the-art com­pa­ny that cur­rent­ly has around one hun­dred employ­ees. Since June 2021, Neher has expand­ed its busi­ness field to include fix­ture con­struc­tion, jig con­struc­tion and mea­sure­ment tech­nol­o­gy.