A pair of the latest offerings from a company with a watchmaking background are good for a lot more than machining watch parts.

Capable of precise cutting, these state-of-the-art Swiss-style lathes are sold by Marubeni Citizen-Cincom Inc. in Allendale, New Jersey. One of the lathes, the M532 VIII, is the newest version of the Citizen Cincom M series turret-style Swiss turning center. The base M532 model can handle bar diameters up to 32 mm (1.26"), but its capacity can be increased to 38 mm (1.5") with the addition of an upgrade kit, which includes sleeves and a different guide bushing unit.

"You purchase this kit instead of buying another larger machine to run that one stray job" that requires a greater capacity, said Rich Miller, North Central regional sales manager.

He said an upgrade kit ranges from roughly $10,000 to $20,000.

The M532 VIII turret-style Swiss turning center can handle bar diameters up to 32 mm. Image courtesy of Marubeni Citizen-Cincom

The half-index capability of the M532's 10-station turret allows a total of 20 positions. The turret features a tang drive that replaces the bevel gears that turn tools in older M models. By turning just the one tool doing the cutting at any one time rather than all the tools in the turret, the tang drive enables more torque to be allocated to the cutting tool in use, Miller explained. In addition, he said turning only one tool at a time reduces wear, as well as heat generated during the machining process.

The M532 offers 12 cutting axes, including a b-axis for angular drilling and contour milling. The machine also features a larger door area than older M machines, he said, which makes it easier for users to change tools and inserts.

The other addition to Marubeni Citizen-Cincom's lathe lineup is the new-generation Cincom L212X featuring the all-axis simultaneous Cincom System M70 control, as well as a 15,000 rpm main spindle. The back spindle of the machine has a y2-axis that expands the range of usable tools.

"In the initial version of the L12, the tools for the back spindle cannot move up and down in Y, which limits what you can do on a subspindle," Miller said. "But having a y-axis allows cross drills, slotting and many other things on the back side."

Additionally, he said a change in the back spindle motor has increased the maximum speed of this spindle from 10,000 rpm to 12,000 rpm. The new motor also has more torque than its predecessor, resulting in shortened spindle acceleration and deceleration times, he said.

The back spindle of the Cincom L212X has a y2-axis that allows the use of more tools and operations. Image courtesy of Marubeni Citizen-Cincom

Both the M532 and L212X are programmed using Citizen's editing function, which is designed to simplify complex jobs that involve both machine spindles working simultaneously.

"Citizen put lots of effort into their controls so users can easily program difficult moves just with the editing software," which is simple G code, Miller said.

Citizen started making machines to produce its own watch parts and later began selling its machines to others. Today, machines like the M532 and L212X still are used to make watch parts, he said. But the main applications for these machines are in the medical industry.

"In the medical (field)," Miller said, "you have long, skinny parts and tiny parts being made that are hard to generate on normal two-axis CNC machines."

He has customers in the automotive, hydraulics and semiconductor industries as well. What they all have in common is a need to do precision machining.

Machines like the M532 and L212X "are not made for just hogging material and what a simple two-axis lathe can do," Miller said. "For the most part, when people come in, it means they are looking to generate parts that are very
accurate."