Text written in Basque and translated automatically by Elia without any subsequent editing. SEE ORIGINAL

BIEMH 2010

Report on the machine tool that is usually carried out every two years at the Barakaldo Trade Fair, BEC. The biennial appears to be accompanied by Asier Gandarias of Danobat and the journalist Beñar Kortabarria.

ASIER GANDARIAS; DANOBAT: Good morning to you! In what way?

BEÑAR KORTABARRIA; ELHUYAR FOUNDATION: All right, let's go. Here to see your machines.

According to A.G.:Shall we go straight to see some machine?

According to B. K.:All right, then.

According to A.G.: Come on, then. Now we're approaching an upright lathe. This piece in front of us belongs to a ship in Bermeo, it's a propeller.

According to B. K.:A great piece, right?

According to A.G.: Yeah, this is big, but we make them a lot bigger than this. We haven't been able to bring him in. We have another machine with a diameter of 6 meters. To give you an idea, there are some people in the villages who are carousels, there is a machine that would have the size of the front of the carousels. These are aimed at certain sectors, they are for some sectors that use large pieces, and we are a little focused on this "niche".

According to B. K.: Do you always use vertical lathes with large pieces like this?

According to A.G.: In use, both vertical lathes and large milling machines are used, which are placed on rotating plates of this type. Often to make large parts of the wind sector. For example, this piece in the form of a bucket that they carry in front of them, called a spark plug. It is used for the machining of bushings and such large elements.

According to B. K.:What was the last machine you made?

According to A.G.: One of the last. The last is actually what we are doing at Danobat now. It is currently the largest machine in southern Europe looking at this area. One of all terrain would be a machine in size that could fit in.

According to A.G.: We've come from machine tools, from bowing machines, and we've come to artificial vision. Do they have anything to do with it? These are the ones that we have started to incorporate equipment and systems into machines a few years ago. For what purpose? To improve their accuracy, quality and efficiency.

According to B. K.: These are new things, right? There was no such thing 20 years ago.

According to A.G.: Yeah, they're pretty new. The essence of this is in the end, as I have already said, the preparation of the machine in the account and the increase in the added value.

According to B. K.:How was this function performed before?

According to A.G.: What we had before, twenty-five years ago, was: very good workers. We still have them today, but they have other tools to make their work easier and of better quality. Previously, the worker’s vision was used, and depending on what he saw or felt, he made one choice or another in the process.

According to B. K.: In front of us is a loaf of bread.

According to A.G.: This is a curious element: a little bit out of the machine tool itself, you can have applications in another sector. In this case we would have a conveyor belt, and here a product would come. In this case, we have a bread, but in that way a chorizo or whatever it is can come. What does the system do? The system, through a pile of chambers here on the inside, receives the geometry of what is inside. According to this, the machine has all the data, knowing when to cut the bread or chorizo. And that's how we got it later, when we went to the butcher shop, all the chorizos with the same size. That's the essence of it.

According to B. K.:We see others here.

According to A.G.:Yeah, we've got another one, curious, on the edge, the crane system right here in front of us.

According to B. K.: Besides, he's working.

According to A.G.: Yeah, we're lucky in this case. Today, large cranes of this type are used in the construction and steel industry when moving large sheets of Christ. Typically, cranes of this type are used between two people: one is located below and the other is located above. The lower one gives orders, and the upper one moves the crane. They are high-rise elements that allow a single person to use the entire crane.

According to B. K.:From below, by the way, right?

According to A.G.: From below, yes. The person on the ground would move the crane through all the facilities, both by gestures and by voice.

According to B. K.:Strange, really!

According to A.G.:At least I found it very curious.

According to B. K.:What is this, Asier?

According to A.G.: What we have in front of us here is a new development that we would use in the screws of the machine tool, which is currently in operation. Instead of using the bearings so far, it would use magnetism. Remember how we played with magnets when we were kids? How did two identical poles approach each other? It uses the same phenomenon. Magnets are placed around an axis, and any tools inserted into the axis as a result of the magnetic field they form would be exposed to air.

According to B. K.: He would then be in levitating mode and would have no contact with the environment.

According to A.G.: This is the advantage of this: the creation of a contactless shaft. What benefits does this bring? On the one hand, since there is no subsequent contact for maintenance, there will also be no friction. On the other hand, there would be the ability of these machines to take a high speed. In this case, it could work at 70,000 revolutions per minute.

According to B. K.: There's something, eh! !

According to A.G.: Well, that's it. Considering that usually the axes run 3,000/5,000 10/15,000 and 20,000 are already many...the figures we are talking about are impressive.

According to B. K.: And at this speed, what can be machined?

According to A.G.: Well, this speed is usually found both for small tools, for tools with a small diameter, for example for micro-milling issues, and also for machines that require high precision.

According to B. K.:We sat down, let's see!

According to A.G.:Let’s see how we get out of here!