What is the difference between a CNC milling machine and a machining center?

What is the difference between a CNC milling machine and a machining center? In fact, this question is not only confusing for laymen, but also many people in the industry can’t tell the difference.

Simply put, the machining center is an upgraded version of the CNC milling machine. If the CNC milling machine is compared to a steel saint, then the machining center is at the level of a gold saint.

In fact, these two processing equipment mainly have the following three differences:

The biggest difference is whether it has a tool magazine or not

Ordinary CNC milling machines also have CNC operating systems (such as Japan’s Fanuc, Germany’s Siemens, China’s Huazhong or Guangshu, etc.), and also have three feed axes and a rotating spindle. Their processing mode geometry is exactly the same, and also Basically the same processing capacity can be achieved.

The biggest difference between them is whether the equipment has a tool magazine or not. The machining center is actually a CNC milling machine with a tool magazine. The machining center can complete multiple processing operations in one clamping, such as milling, drilling, Tapping and so on, because it can realize the automatic follow-up of the tool, and in the continuous processing of the multi-process, the operator does not need manual intervention, as long as the program is programmed, the tool and the corresponding parameters are configured. . This is not the case with CNC milling machines. CNC milling machines can also realize multiple processes in one clamping. The difference is that in the process of process conversion, the tool must be manually changed, so the processing process is discontinuous and intermittent to multiple degrees. Execution, such processing is slightly inferior to the machining center in terms of machining quality and machining efficiency.

So when you see a piece of equipment in the future, you can directly determine whether it is a CNC milling machine or a machining center by whether it has a tool magazine or not. This is a gold standard.

Whether it is full protection

In fact, this is not absolute for many equipment. Many CNC milling machines have gradually begun to make full-protection processing modes. Of course, there are also many old-fashioned CNC milling machines that still use open processing methods or semi-protected processing. To a certain extent, this is still different from the current machining center. Of course, this difference is not absolute (again).

In fact, this has a lot to do with the development process of equipment. In the initial stage of numerical control of processing equipment, many manufacturers do not pay much attention to appearance design and safety protection. The milling machines are all made into an open form, or the better one is a semi-open form. Although this CNC milling machine does not have many defects in function, it still exists in terms of processing safety and processing environment. Big deficit.

For example, the high-temperature iron filings generated by processing will splash on people, causing harm to the human body. The coolant used to cool the tool during processing will also splash on the operator, soiling the operator’s clothes, etc., so although the production equipment With the progress of research and development, especially the invasion of foreign high-end equipment, the design and manufacture of processing equipment in my country are also striding forward on a more humane, more beautiful and more artistic road.

This is a process. Any progress requires a process. Product technology and product art are the unified requirements for industrial products in the future and the only way for the future development of industrial products.

Whether with automatic chip conveyor

Like the previous one, this criterion is not an absolute criterion. It is also a mobile criterion based on the development process of processing equipment. The reason for this is also because the previous equipment had some hindsight functions in research and development. Due to the choice, many new CNC milling machines are basically equipped with full protection and automatic chip conveyors, which are not much different from machining centers.

But for those old-fashioned CNC milling machines, this criterion is still valid. After all, a device that is not even protected is not dare to ask for automatic chip removal anyway. In fact, the current machinery industry practitioners should be grateful. In this era, it is this era that provides the technology and ability to liberate our hands, allowing us to do our jobs more easily and efficiently, and with the comprehensive development of Industry 4.0, this liberation of the labor force is also accelerating crazy. , and even the elimination of many labor or labor methods, we must always be prepared.

Based on the above reasons, if you want to choose a piece of equipment, of course, it is better to choose a machining center, at least in terms of machining efficiency, and the machining range is much larger, especially when used with the rotary table of the fourth axis. It’s just an artifact.

If you want to learn a processing equipment, you should also learn the operation of the machining center. At least it is more complicated in programming, and it is also more complicated in the design of fixtures and the preparation of processing technology. After all, compound processing requires a lot of testing. Of course, this is also the guarantee of processing quality.