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What Are Precision Machined Parts?
Precision machined parts are fabricated parts that require intricate features like holes, threads, tapers, or grooves and precise specifications that must fit perfectly with other components. These machined parts often require excellent precision for proper fit and function of the assembly. Hence, experts recommend using specialized equipment to meet highly tight tolerance and ensure fewer errors.
Moreover, precision machined parts is a common term manufacturers employ to sell products to potential customers and elevate customers’ perception of their capabilities. It would help to consider the meanings of accuracy and precision to understand better what precision machined parts truly are. The two terms differ even though both are related to quality and are mostly used interchangeably.
Accuracy and Precision in Precision Parts Machining
Accuracy refers to how close to the target values a measurement is—for instance, the proximity of the dimension to the specified measurement. A measurement is highly accurate when the measured value doesn’t deviate from the desired value. Conversely, precision in CNC machining is the ability to replicate consistent features across several machined units. Precision represents the proximity/closeness degree of two or more measurements of machined parts.
A CNC machine shop can meet your dimensional requirements for multiple parts of the same design when they can fulfil your precision requirements. Besides, a precision machine shop can meet precision and accuracy requirements with a strong quality foundation. A precision-machined parts supplier must possess cutting-edge equipment and advanced processes to achieve precision machining. Such companies/businesses must invest considerably in quality control or systems.
Hence, it would be best to contract a supplier with the right resources to meet accuracy and precision requirements. Typical elements for a strong quality control and management system at a precision CNC shop include:
- An insightful mix of training and procedures provides precision part manufacturers with the essential resources to create accurate and reliable parts each time.
- Management that prioritizes quality and operates appropriately even in cases when quality issues arise and calls for costly corrective actions.
- An organizational atmosphere of consistent improvement where each personnel understands their contribution to the overall precision of machined products and the effect of their work on the application of each precision component.
- A quality management system that is examined and certified to AS9100 or ISO 9001 standards.
- An accurate measurement system using techniques or tools to detect errors is frequently analyzed with well-maintained and calibrated. If the measurement system and equipment that determines the accuracy or precision of parts is wrongly used or inaccurate, how accurate or precise the machined parts are wouldn’t matter.
Benefits of Using Precision Machined Parts
For several reasons, precision machined components are found useful in different industries where quality, efficiency, and accuracy are paramount. Some of these significant advantages include:
High Accuracy and Consistency
Since precision machining allows for tighter tolerances, machined parts possess high accuracy and consistency levels critical to automotive, medical, and aerospace applications. Precision-machined parts are often consistent from one batch to another, resulting in fewer errors and variations.
Cost-Efficient
Precision-machined parts are mostly cost-efficient because the machining process’s high precision prevents material wastage. Over time, precision machining helps manufacturers minimize overall production costs since the process’s accuracy reduces the number of defective parts.
Improved Product Quality
Unlike parts produced with processes like casting or welding, precision machined components retain their durability and strength because the machining process doesn’t alter their material properties. More particularly, precision-machined parts exhibit excellent surface finishes with fewer defects without requiring further finishing processes.
Longevity and Enhanced Performance
Precision machined components last longer since they have a better surface finish, reducing wear and tear in working environments. These parts often require less frequent maintenance or replacement. Precision parts perform better in high-demand applications because of their superior quality and accuracy.
Customization
Manufacturers can easily customize precision machined parts according to specific requirements, satisfying the application’s requirements or making design changes without sacrificing quality. Customized precision parts support innovation in various cutting-edge sectors since modern technologies like electronic or bodily implants require precise and accurately machined parts that meet tight tolerances.
Standard CNC Machine Tools Used for Precision Machined Parts
Manufacturers employ different machining equipment and tools to deliver quality precision machined components. While some precision machining processes involve a single CNC machine, others involve multiple machines. We’ll explore some of the machines used to create precision machined parts in this section:
CNC Milling Machines
CNC mills are versatile machines that reshape stationary workpieces with a multi-point rotary cutting tool. They can create various shapes, mainly face-milled and peripheral-milled features. Flat surfaces and shallow cavities are typical face-milled features, while deeper cavities, such as slots and threads, are standard peripheral-milled features. Precision CNC mills are ideal for machining rectangular – and square-shaped components with different features.
CNC Drilling Machines
Drilling machines make cylindrical holes in raw materials with rotating drill bits. These drill bits are multi-point CNC tools that remove chips from workpieces to ensure advanced hole machining. Typical drill bits used for machining precision parts include peck drills, spotting drills, chucking reamers, drill presses, and screw machine drills.
CNC Grinding Machines
Precision grinding machines are another common tool manufacturers use to create precision machined parts with smooth surface roughness requirements. These CNC grinders offer remarkable accuracy. While CNC mills and lathes first create workpieces with rough surfaces, precision grinders provide final surface finishing that meets the application requirements.
CNC Lathes and Turning Machine
CNC lathes can rotate a blank while the cutting tools remain stationed during machining. The cutters are in linear motions along the revolving bar stock, removing material around the circumferences to achieve the desired features and diameter. CNC Swiss lathes are typical CNC lathes that can rotate workpieces and feed them axially into the cutting tool through guide bushings. These machines allow the machining of precision parts with tighter tolerance since they offer better support for workpieces while the cutting tools shape the bar stock.
CNC turning machines add internal and external features like broaches, bores, tapings, slots, and reamed and drilled holes on precision parts. Bolts, poppets, screws, and shafts are standard precision machined components fabricated with CNC turning machines.
CNC Plasma Cutting Machines
These precision machines use high-powered, computer-controlled plasma torches to cut material into desired geometries. Plasma cutters deliver torches of over 50,000 °F. Hence, these tools make cuts in workpieces since they can melt quickly. However, plasma-cutting machines are mainly compatible with electrically conductive materials like brass, aluminum, copper, and stainless steel.
Electrical Discharge Machines
These machines cut materials into desired shapes with controlled electrical sparks. This approach is sometimes called spark eroding, wire burning, spark machining, or die sinking. The machinist places the workpiece under an electrode wire during the EDM process. Then, the programmed machine produces electrical discharges from the wire, generating extreme heat that melts the material and flushes it with an electrolytic fluid to achieve the intended shape and feature.
Industry Applications of Precision Machined Parts
Diverse industries and applications embrace precision machining as the optimal choice when parts play functional roles or must be assembled with other components. Here are typical applications of precision machined components in different industries:
- Transportation: The automotive sector continues evolving, increasing the demand for innovative, precise automobile parts. Safety-critical and high-performance precision machined components used in transportation include engine components, lighting system components, custom dashboards, transmission components, battery components, valves, and sensors.
- Aerospace: Aircraft manufacturers rely on precision machining to make lightweight, high-strength parts that meet precision, reliability, and safety requirements. Aircraft structural components, aircraft engines, thermal management system parts, turbine blades, flight control equipment, satellite components, and landing gear are typical precision machined components in the aerospace industry.
- Medical: Due to its tight tolerance specifications, precision machining helps manufacturers in the health sector create parts that must meet strict industry standards. These precision machined medical components include screws, plates, and other implantable hardware, surgical instrument and tools, non-implantable hardware, storage components, and components for tissue or cell transportation.
- Electronics: Electrical and electronic device manufacturers use precision machined parts for housings, connectors, and precision mounts for sensitive electronic systems.
Common Materials Used for CNC Precision Machined Components
Many manufacturers use metals and non-metal materials for precision machined parts. However, ensure the properties of the sourced materials meet the specifications of your applications to guarantee reliability and peak performance. Examples of these CNC materials include:
- Metals: Aluminum (6063, 7075-T6, 5052, 6061-T6, and 7050), Brass, Bronze, Stainless Steel (17-4 PH, 316L, 304L, 410, 416, and 440C), Titanium, and Copper (alloys 110 and 101).
- Non-Metals: Typical non-metallic materials used for precision CNC machined components include HDPE, PTFE, polypropylene, ABS, Nylon, polycarbonate, polyphenylene Sulfide (PPS), and acrylic.
Trends and Future of Precision Machining
Precision CNC machining contributes significantly to modern manufacturing, providing precise and highly accurate parts and components that meet stringent industry standards. Over the years, recent technological advancements in precision machining and specific future trends have reshaped the designing and machining of complex parts. Here are advancements that apply to precision CNC machining and its future:
CNC Tool Coatings
Carbide and titanium are commonly used CNC tooling coatings that help mitigate wear resistance and increase the hardness of CNC tools’ surfaces. Coatings with incorporated nanolayers or nanocomposites are recent enhancements that help improve the cutting tool’s friction coefficient and wear resistance. Moreover, these nanomaterial coatings help prevent the coating’s crack propagation, which is comprised of the tool’s base material.
Since thicker coating forms more rounded tool edges, which affects the cutting ability for materials such as aluminum and stainless steel, product engineers have achieved thinner coatings with the same hardness and wear resistance properties due to the advancements in coating technology.
Physical vapor deposition is one of the new coating technologies that allows a homogenous, thin coating with exceptional mechanical properties. Machinists use different coating materials like nitrogen, titanium, and aluminum combination (TiAlN) to execute these methods.
Advancement in Tooling for Precision CNC Machining
Precision machining has witnessed significant innovation in tooling, materials, geometries, and coatings, allowing for optimized efficiency and precision. This tooling durability and extensive capabilities of precision machining help reduce the possibility of omitting precision requirements because of tool wear and failure.
Robotics, Programming, and AI
Robotics, Artificial Intelligence (AI) Machining, and simulation technologies are recent trends in every industry. Precision CNC machining has benefited extensively from advanced technology in various ways, such that:
- High-end software can predict, improve, and verify machining processes in real-time to ensure reduced errors, reduce accuracy mistakes, provide in-process feedback for on-the-fly operations optimization, and handle raw material deviation. Additional benefits of these technologies in precision machining include reduced machine verification steps, cutting tool speed and feed rate optimization, tool path efficiency, and seamless integration of CAD/CAM interfaces.
- Manufacturers can effectively make real-time modifications to compensate for thermal deformation, vibration, and accuracy changes with dynamic monitoring and feedback loop, ensuring the precision of machined parts without necessarily reworking.
- CNC machines integrated with robotics help reduce workforce costs, increasing production efficiency. Consequently, it allows engineers and machinists to focus on more pressing issues or productivity gains projects.
- IoT machine monitoring and connectivity facilitates extensive data collection and feeding to machine learning algorithms, allowing operations analysis to improve production efficiency and optimal performance of CNC machines.
Conclusion
Precision-machined parts are fundamental parts of critical systems in different industries. Their ability to meet tight tolerance ranges ensures high accuracy, performance, consistency, and reliability in complex systems. Although these precision components facilitate the smooth operation of different equipment and machinery to reduce failure risks and improve safety and efficiency, their precise manufacturing ensures less waste and machining costs and promotes innovation in advanced technologies.
AT-Machining is a leading and renowned precision machined part manufacturer. We are the ideal contract manufacturer whenever you seek a partner with the right skill and expertise to handle your precision machining needs. Our experts leverage our decades of machining experience with innovative machines to offer cost-effective and reliable CNC machining services. We can achieve tolerances of approximately +/- 0.001 inch for your high-precision components and with a surface finish that meets specifications. Trust us to deliver precision machined products that meet global standards for quality and performance, as we strictly adhere to precision machining standards, including ASTM, ISO, and ASME. Upload your CAD file now for a detailed and reliable quotation!
