For editors, marketing speak comes with a grain of salt. Terms like “best in class,” “first of its kind,” and “unique” get tossed around more than a frisbee at a Fourth of July celebration. A recent conversation with the team at Murata Machinery USA Inc. (Muratec USA), however, reveals that marketing professionals don’t always need to overstate the positives – they speak for themselves.
According to Murata Machinery’s team, the Muratec LS3015MC is a first-of-its-kind machine: An advanced combination machine that integrates high-speed laser cutting with heavy-duty machining on a single, shared platform. To find out just what makes it unique – yes, we’re using that phrase – Structural Steel Fabrication spoke with Dan Kosinski, product application engineer, and Matt Ward, business unit manager in Muratec USA’s fabrication business unit within the company’s machine tool division.
Kosinski’s background includes about a decade and a half of experience with flat sheet lasers, while Ward’s background is on the chipmaking side of the industry. Coincidentally, the machine borrows a little from both of their wheelhouses and puts them in one envelope. Layering their experience on top of Muratec’s background in punch-laser combination machines, the pair were ideal interviewees.
SSF: What are the LS3015MC’s core functions? What makes it unique?
Ward: Murata Machinery already had experience developing punch-laser combos in the past, but those machines are aimed at a different market. Traditional punch-laser combo machines are generally geared toward thinner material. The LS3015MC is different, though, as it doesn’t have the forming capabilities combo machines are known for – you wouldn’t put a louver, for example, into thick material.
With this machine, the laser system does much of the heavy lifting. As an 8-kW machine with a zoom head, it’s our most powerful laser offering; it can cut through some fairly thick material.
On the machining side, it performs drilling, countersinking, counterboring and reaming capabilities on a secondary gantry. It can do anything a flat sheet laser can do, but it can also process parts that require tapping or countersinking without any manual material handling or secondary equipment – all on one machine.
What are the main advantages of the all-in-one approach?
Kosinski: Anytime you can take material handling out of the equation, it’s a good thing. The less we handle parts, the fewer chances we have to introduce problems. It isn’t unheard of for a fabricator to get all the way through three out of four processes and have to scrap a part because a mistake was made late in the game. We’re trying to avoid that.
The hybrid machine concept also includes a safety factor. Part sizes vary, but many fabricators will process parts on the LS3015MC that involve a lot of weight. When operators have to manually move parts, there’s a liability issue. There’s the potential for employees to injure their backs or experience long-term fatigue from repetitive material handling.
In general, we’re seeing more demand from customers for multiple processes on a single machine. The goal is to automate more and depend less on staff, which is increasingly hard to find.
With the seemingly unending climb in laser power, is 8 kW sufficient for thick material?
Kosinski: Definitely, and a lot of that comes down to Murata Machinery’s roots as a Japanese company. Japanese manufacturers tend to be a little bit more conservative and practical, which means they’re going to design their machines around what the market actually needs. Could someone benefit from a 12 kW or even a 20 kW? Sure, but to take advantage of the speed that amount of power can achieve, you would need a different drive system and gantry.
As much as we don’t want to admit it, more power often means more problems. With more power, there are more components to maintain as well as issues arising from increased heat and sensitivity to debris. Longevity and reliability, therefore, are two major advantages to having lower power.
In terms of the sufficiency of 8 kW, a zoom head will expand the capabilities of any machine you put it on. If you compare a 6-kW fixed-lens system to a 6-kW system with a zoom head, your capabilities will be drastically greater with the zoom head.
The 8-kW will cut incredibly fast on all the thin stuff while still having what it takes to be optimal on thicker plate – our system can consistently handle material up to 1 in. thick. Its sweet spot is middle-of-the-range type material. Our tapping unit is rated up to 5/8 in., which basically shows that this is the type of material the LS3015MC is really geared toward.
What is an ideal application or part for the LS3015MC?
Ward: The target application is structural in nature – thicker mild steel parts that require secondary processes like counterboring or countersinking. It’s ideal for building foundations and base plate for equipment and structures that don’t require a perfectly milled surface. These types of parts often need some countersinking or precise holes. While a laser system can achieve tolerances of ±0.003, many of these structural applications require higher tolerances, which the LS3015MC can achieve.
For structural parts, it’s all about safety, which means it’s critical to be precise and achieve tight tolerances. If a fabricator needs to counterbore a part, they need to be sure the bolts can be seated properly for a tight fit.
To do that in the chipmaking world, secondary operations like counterboring, tapping and drilling on a machining center always require some form of workholding or fixturing to establish zero. For the LS3015MC, an arm is used to provide stability while machining and establish zero in conjunction with the workholders. The arm also helps with chip evacuation, lubrication and removing the bow in the sheet.
If we aren’t pushing that down firmly and establishing that zero, our tolerances and depths will be off. For customers, that’s unacceptable, but for the machine itself, that’s also unacceptable, as it creates worse tool wear and tool life.
Another way that we maintain tight tolerances is by keeping multiple processes within one machine. In the chipmaking world, we always want to do as much machining in one operation as possible. Otherwise, each time we’re removing material, we’re introducing the potential to lower tolerances. After you establish that zero point in the first operation, you’ll never truly find it again. That’s why we see tolerance stack-ups when various processes are involved.
With the LS3015MC, all the parts are produced in one clamping. In a machining center, material is held to zero with a vise that’s tightened and cranked down. Ours achieves that by having the workholders hold the material and additionally by it being held down by the arm. We aren’t pulling the material out, taking it off the table or re-clamping. And we’re certainly not having to find zero again.
What other components or features should potential users know about?
Kosinski: The same tool that holds down the part also features the ability to add coolant and suction to remove chips from the work area. A typical machining setup requires a fair amount of coolant for chip evacuation and tool life, but Muratec offers a unique three-way approach to chip evacuation. With our system, we use a concentrated, minimum-quantity lubrication [MQL] spray in combination with a feature called oscillation cutting.
The purpose of oscillation cutting is to break up the chips so that they can easily be sucked up into the arm. That also helps to overcome the potential for coolant flooding, which can be a mess.
Are there any other differentiators that should be mentioned?
Ward: Inherently, Murata Machinery was well-positioned to develop the LS3015MC. The company has four divisions: clean factory, logistics and automation, textiles, and machine tools, with the machine tool division being historically split in half with a machining side and a fabrication side. This machine, therefore, is a cool crossover of that split.
We talked about some of the benefits users can expect, but, of course, we didn’t cover all of them. It depends on how much you want to peel back the layers, right? The more you keep peeling, the more benefits you see. We could go deeper into injury prevention for staff, reduced insurance costs, better staff retention, and lower recruitment and hiring costs. We could also talk more about the opportunities it offers fabricators to bid on and win more work. In general, the machine was designed to meet the needs of structural fabricators, so there’s a lot for them to appreciate.
If you’re interested in a machine that can do more than one thing in your shop, check out our archive on combo equipment.
