Big requirements for small tools

END USER: InovaTools (Eckerle & Ertel GmbH), 011-49-8467-8400-0, www.inovatools.eu, InovaTools USA LLC, (810) 444-8745.
CHALLENGE: Achieve tight-tolerance requirements when producing microtools.
SOLUTION: Grinding machines designed to produce microtools.
SOLUTION PROVIDER: Rollomatic SA, 011-41-32-752-17-00, www.rollomaticsa.com; Rollomatic Inc., (866) 713-6398, www.rollomaticusa.com.

Manufacturers of microscale cutting tools require a high level of precision from their grinding machines. They also need a great deal of trust in a grinding machine builder when purchasing its equipment to produce tool features that often require a microscope to see.

InovaTools (Eckerle & Ertel GmbH), based in Kinding-Haunstetten, Germany, makes cutting tools from 0.05mm to 6.0mm in diameter with tolerances as tight as 0.005mm for diameters and 0.003mm for radii. The products include step mills and other milling tools, profilers and step drills and other holemaking tools.

“Those tools cannot be ground on just any machine,” said Georg Eckerle, the company’s managing director. “It must be possible to produce the tools quickly and cost-effectively. Otherwise, a medium-size company such as ours cannot survive in the marketplace.”

The toolmaker found a solution in grinding machines from Rollomatic SA, Le Landeron, Switzerland. Eckerle’s initial contact in 2002 with the grinding machine builder was Dieter Furtwengler, head of sales in Germany. “Mr. Furtwengler introduced us to the GrindSmart 620XS tool grinder, but warned straight away that the machine’s precision can only be incorporated into the tool with correspondingly precise, cylindrically ground carbide rods,” Eckerle said. “After a few tests with standard carbide rods, we discovered he was correct.”

To grind the rods, InovaTools uses ShapeSmart P4, NP4 and NP5 cylindrical grinding machines from Rollomatic. In addition to its four cylindrical grinders, the toolmaker has one Nano6 and eight 620/628XS tool grinders.

Machine design is based on what is crucial in microtool production, according to Rollomatic. And Rollomatic should know because it started in the early 1950s as a manufacturer of micro-tools. “I worked in tool production myself in the 1980s,” said company CEO Michel Rollier. “Even back then, we used to manufacture our own machines. That is why I understand how a machine must be designed for it to be popular with tool manufacturers.”

Courtesy of Rollomatic

InovaTools produces cutting tools from 0.05mm to 6.0mm in diameter on GrindSmart 620/628XS and Nano6 grinding machines from Rollomatic.