In recent years, whether it is the shift of artificial intelligence (AI) from discriminative to generative applications, or the gradual development of traditional industrial robots towards human-machine collaboration and humanoid robots, the common ground is more humanized and intuitive operation. At this year's TIMTOS, we can see that machine tool manufacturers such as QUASER and JAINNHER, along with key component CNC control system giant SYNTEC, are building ecosystems for AI and robotics respectively, to accelerate implementation across various industries.
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Precision Grinding Technology Combined with AI Algorithms to Improve Machining Efficiency and Quality
Grinding, as the final process in metalworking, involves complex precision techniques and long processing times, resulting in extremely high costs. In addition, traditional grinding operations rely heavily on manual experience, making them prone to crashes due to incorrect settings or improper operation. JAINNHER believes that although the industry has now reduced the accident rate to below 5%, each accident can still cause an average of approximately NT$50,000 in repair costs and lead to an average of 2-3 days of downtime.
JAINNHER Machine, one of Taiwan's leading precision grinding machine manufacturers, incorporates mechatronics analysis during the design process to integrate mechanical structure, control circuits and intelligent functions for overall design optimization to ensure the dynamic performance and stability of the machines. Furthermore, it combines high-sensitivity acoustic emission (AE) sensors and ammeter sensors, installed in key positions such as the spindle, grinding wheel and worktable. Compared to traditional triaxial sensors, these can more accurately capture changes in cutting conditions and subtle, high-frequency vibrations, avoiding any negative impact on machining quality.
By incorporating information provided by the controller, including the coordinate position of the machining axis and the workpiece rotation speed, the dynamic operation of the grinding machine spindle and the grinding wheel gap are monitored in real-time. This is particularly suitable for ultra-precision machining, ultra-high-speed cutting machine tools and micro-machining, enabling preventive maintenance or real-time adjustment of machining parameters and effectively improving machining accuracy and stability.
Compared to existing grinding machines on the market, JAINNHER is also the first to introduce AI technology into grinding vibration analysis to achieve more accurate early warning and diagnosis. This enhances the safety, efficiency and machining quality of grinding machines as well as filling a gap in the market. It also transforms the experience of veteran operators into quantifiable data models, not only reducing reliance on manual experience but also passing on valuable skills to ensure the stability of machining quality. This addresses the industry's growing labor shortage and technology transfer challenges.
To reduce accident risk and improve machining efficiency, JAINNER has also developed an innovative intelligent platform that utilizes a unique Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) algorithm. By integrating the grinding experience of veteran operators, it has developed a unique predictive model for analyzing vibration data. This not only allows for rapid diagnosis of machine anomalies and provides maintenance recommendations, reducing downtime and 30% maintenance time, but also provides early warnings before crashes and automatically stops feeding, ensuring equipment and personnel safety and the reduction of the accident rate to below 1%.
By predicting the optimal infeed parameters based on machining conditions such as feed rate, workpiece rotation speed, size and accuracy requirements, machining efficiency can be increased by up to 15% in safe conditions. It also optimizes grinding parameters to improve machining efficiency, accuracy and surface quality thereby extending tool life and increasing product yield by 5%, enhancing the added value of grinding.
Five-Axis Machining Centers Expand Applications: Breaking Through LLM Modeling Bottlenecks in AI Controllers
As for QUASER, a major manufacturer of five-axis machine tools in generative AI applications, it plans to showcase a new version of its Mr.Q function at this year's TIMTOS, expanding its application to CNC controllers of different brands to assist single-machine users in operation, production and troubleshooting. By directly connecting to the backend AI via an iPad, it can continuously monitor equipment utilization and processing status through Line or external links. It can even monitor motor current changes during machine processing to detect anomalies early and also incorporates AOI (Automated Optical Inspection) after processing to improve product yield.
This avoids limitations caused by the fact that many mainstream CNC controllers in machine tools still have closed information, resulting in AI application functions not being as powerful as NVIDIA training platforms. Winbro, QUASER's UK subsidiary, have EDM/laser processing machines which use PC-based controllers, allowing them to control the source code and making it easier to integrate with AI.
Furthermore, in collaboration with Tunghai University, QUASER has developed AI Twin technology which has been successfully applied to machine tools. This is based on innovative applications of generative AI and Large Language Models (LLMs) to break through bottlenecks in the LLM construction process, becoming the second brain of machine tools.
This provides users with more conversational, interactive dialogues for operation guidance, setting adjustments and troubleshooting. Machine tools can quickly respond, providing accurate answers and suggestions. Combined with machine tool usage experience and safety essentials, this not only enhances the user experience but also effectively reduces operating errors and maintenance time thereby improving production efficiency.
QUASER is currently in the stage of establishing a full range of machine model databases. After constructing the API and obtaining process data uploads through I/O ports, users can choose keyboard or voice interface operation for self-training. Mr.Q actively determines and intelligently analyzes data to judge whether the execution procedure is correct or whether to shorten the cycle time. In the future, it will start with Taiwanese manufacturers and then gradually open up to overseas distributors for testing through partial backend databases.
CNC Control Systems Provide One-Stop Services to Achieve Robotic AI for Low-Carbon Intelligent Manufacturing
SYNTEC Technology, a major domestic manufacturer of CNC machine tool and robot PC-based controllers, will also embark on a green manufacturing journey with customers through static and dynamic displays at this year's TIMTOS. Compared to European and Japanese CNC controller brands which have been providing Digital Twin virtual simulation cutting functions for major machine tool manufacturers in recent years, SYNTEC has dedicated teams for collecting processing parameters and motion characteristics to optimize surface quality. This assists customers in completing pre-processing simulation operations.
The turning/milling/grinding CNC control systems exhibited this year will cover four products that have passed ISO international energy-saving standards:
1.Energy Consumption Monitoring Solution: Utilizing function modules such as Sensorhub energy management and Synfactory intelligent equipment management, customers can monitor all new and old equipment and carbon inventories in the factory through smart meters, investigate each work order and compare individual energy consumption. Subsequently its subsidiary, LEANTEC, will assist in optimization analysis, empowering customers to establish autonomous monitoring and management of energy consumption, helping companies and factories achieve precise energy saving and improve production efficiency.
2.Energy-Saving Servo: The "Power Regeneration Multi-in-One Drive" developed by SYNTEC for machine tool high-speed spindles reduces the kinetic energy wasted by braking during acceleration and deceleration, thereby achieving effective energy reuse and utilizing more efficient and environmentally friendly power in industrial production.
3.Lathe Controller: Introducing automatic chip breaking and energy-saving technology to replace traditional high-pressure water pumps and center-through coolant cutting tools. This reduces the energy consumption caused by high-pressure water pumps and improves automatic loading and unloading efficiency while ensuring machining quality, achieving cost savings and environmental goals for enterprises.
4.Grinding Machine Controller: Through innovative "smart dressing" for energy saving, automatic spindle dynamic balancing and optimized path, it manages grinding wheel consumption during processing while improving processing efficiency, bringing dual benefits to enterprises.
SYNTEC's advantage in the automatic chip breaking function for turning is its ease of use. By simply setting the tool feed conditions, it automatically calculates low-frequency chip breaking parameters and guides users step-by-step through the process. In the future, it will also consider adding AI functions, even allowing users to execute without setting.
In addition, the launched "smart dressing" function, unlike traditional external audio sensors that have poor accuracy in detecting grinding wheel wear and cause waste, can now use AI to assist in determining the dressing timing. Coupled with the grinding machine spindle automatic dynamic balancing function module, which directly calibrates dressing on the equipment, it further enhances efficiency and quality.
LEANTEC Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd., based on SYNTEC's many years of control technology, is committed to providing complete solutions for "unit intelligent" manufacturing. Its core business covers machine tool networking, industrial/collaborative robot and other automation unit systems (Robot Cell) virtual-real integration, as well as various electromechanical modules and intelligent manufacturing peripheral accessories and central control solutions. This helps customers build smart factories to overcome the current challenges of declining birth rates and labor shortages. With highly innovative technology, value-added and integrated applications and comprehensive after-sales service, it has gained customer trust and loyalty.
Industrial robots can be used in the "pre-installation" stage to design and construct one-machine-one-hand, single-machine automation units according to different customer needs. The new high-end machine controller has a built-in AI chip (NPU) with a high degree of computing power. If higher computing power is required, it can also be performed on the Edge PC, providing offline simulation software to prevent interference and calculate beat production time, allowing customers to use it with machining tools for plug-and-play and automatic loading and unloading, reducing labor shortage concerns.
In the "post-installation" stage, one-to-many robot cell solutions are provided for end-users. This is based on the experience of the SYNTEC team in discriminative AI machine learning and AOI deep learning for defect identification and more.
SYNTEC is now also working on LLM models required for generative AI. In the initial stage, it is more inclined to use this internally to assist customers with semantic services, quality control, tracking and judgment and to establish Digital Twin path/parameter optimization algorithms. Both SYNTEC and LEANTEC provide corresponding platforms, tools and other products to lower the barrier to customization.
To cater to the current trend of single machine → automation → cloud applications, SYNTEC has also launched a production intelligence cloud solution. Starting from the top-level cloud "functional applications," it has developed fog computing solutions or Edge Servers and machine networking at the collection/platform level. Down to the bottom-level equipment side, SYNTEC's controller IoT technology is used to digitize equipment and production information for further analysis of factory potential, enabling manufacturers to better manage automated production and improve efficiency.
LEANTEC will also exhibit a cloud management solution at this year's TIMTOS, which can be used to connect CNC machine tool controllers and lightweight collaborative robots to form cell unit modules and introduce AI, AOI, and other related hardware and software to achieve intelligent and multi-machine networked collaboration for data collection to improve quality and performance. This helps customers get started very easily and quickly achieve whole-factory digital transformation, without having to spend a lot of time deploying and integrating many complex automated production lines and wasting costs like in the 3.0 era.
Since the advent of Industry 4.0 in 2011, the rise of smart manufacturing in China and the release of "economic" and "combat" models with some high-end features by major European and Japanese manufacturers have eroded the previous advantage of Taiwan's machine tool industry, which focused on standard models. This has driven Taiwan to invest in value-added development with the goal of "smart machine industrialization and production machine intelligence." To this end, machine tool builders are integrating capabilities such as dedicated jigs/fixtures, system integration and database establishment to provide end customers with turnkey solutions for immediate production and even more intuitive dedicated micro-program apps....
Machine Tools Create Turnkey Solutions with Fully AI-Integrated Smart Hardware and Software
TONGTAI is one of the few Taiwanese companies that started with dedicated machines, primarily producing metal cutting machines such as lathes and milling machines for processing automotive and motorcycle parts. In recent years, they have gradually developed turnkey solutions, providing customers with planning for dedicated jigs/fixtures and robotic system integration as well as acting as an "industrial doctor" to help customers "continuously produce quality products automatically."
Therefore, on the road to Industry 4.0, they have successively integrated cyber-physical systems (CPS), AI and other hardware and software platform technologies aligning with the "smart machine industrialization" trend. In recent years, they have also launched several smart software and platforms that help operators grasp various processing data using the machine tool itself and various sensors. They are also equipped with user-friendly interfaces to make production management more intuitive.
Lin Wen-Wang, the Application Department Manager of TONGTAI, stated that the company plans to showcase all its smart software with AI implementation for different industry applications at this year's TIMTOS, including existing "discriminative" AI solutions, covering functions such as smart tool holders and in-machine automatic chip breaking, to achieve more precise results and reduce user learning time and costs.
For example, for tool monitoring, AI machine learning can be used for modeling and setting upper and lower limits, using the FANUC controller platform and tools to shorten learning time and achieve rapid results. Because it is easy to install, no external sensors are required. Only current analysis collected through the existing controller is needed to connect to the actual load situation for modeling. Compared with European competitors, TONGTAI can achieve real-time millisecond-results and 0.01mm-level monitoring accuracy, suitable for most scenarios and can also be added to equipment from other manufacturers.
Or it can be used for different station stages, such as front-end material feeding or back-end AOI quality inspection in customer-specific turnkey solutions. Through TONGTAI's Intelligent Manufacturing System (TIMS) IPC integrated with AI functions, upper and lower limit thresholds can be quickly defined. Combined with TONGTAI's Line Management System (TLM) and digital meters, new and old or non-TONGTAI machines in the factory can be quickly connected. Through its edge computing platform, controller data is retrieved for calculation to help customers track their carbon footprint, thereby extending tool life, improving efficiency and saving electricity.
This extends to solutions for difficult-to-cut materials required for the processing of many non-metallic parts and consumables in the semiconductor industry. These solutions usually have the characteristic of trading tool life for efficiency. Therefore, AI must be used to set upper and lower limits according to the characteristics of different materials. Then it quickly needs to select suitable tools and processes such as ultrasonic, laser and additive manufacturing according to the cutting conditions to improve efficiency, extend tool life and help customers upgrade their processes.
In addition, TONGTAI began to introduce edge AI solutions provided by Kneron in 2024, which improve product quality control and optimize production processes through machine vision technology, further enhancing equipment maintenance efficiency and safety. In actual manufacturing application scenarios, by real-time analysis of data from sensors, machine settings are automatically adjusted to maintain optimal production status or identify potential defects, thereby reducing scrap rates.
Because edge AI greatly reduces the time delay of transmitting data to remote servers, it speeds up response times. For specialized solutions, consultations and troubleshooting for mechanical applications, there is a way to achieve natural language communication with humans. In the future, in addition to applying generative AI to customer service to help explain company product features and after-sales service, TONGTAI will even begin to integrate its internal professional knowledge and vast wealth of data to train models. This will allow them to build a knowledge management platform for internal R&D departments, and even help customers build and train their own generative AI models.
Parts and Components Shift from Passive to Active, Helping Machine Builders Increase Efficiency and Save Energy
With the continuous development of high-precision technologies, processing and production this inevitably impacts carbon emissions. Although the production and manufacturing capabilities of Taiwan's machine tool and component manufacturers are beyond doubt, the biggest challenge lies in the system integration and planning services of jigs/fixtures matching turnkey solutions. The goals is to help end customers connect CNC machine tools, industrial robots, magnetic fixture control systems and other automated peripheral devices. This, in turn, will streamline and optimize processes, save on labor, material resources and time and thus achieve smart manufacturing, energy saving and carbon reduction.
EARTH-CHAIN is one of the few Taiwanese component manufacturers that can effectively introduce magnetic energy application technology into the metal processing industry. In addition to fully utilizing the passive role of the magnetic fixture system, reducing processing costs, increasing area utilization and improving machine tool processing efficiency, it also integrates the trend of smart automated manufacturing. Controllers can be shared to complete positioning and clamping operations, achieving five-sided machining in one setup without the need for repeated positioning and calibration. This is now widely used in various metal processing and plastic injection molding machines to increase machine tool utilization and reduce excessive processing costs.
Jason Chen, General Manager of EARTH-CHAIN, stated that following the results of building the world's first "Magnetic Application Tool Professional Demonstration Factory" in 2019, the company further expanded it into the "AI Intelligent Automated Machine Magnetic IoT Smart Factory" in 2022, incorporating Mazak precision gantry 3-meter five-sided machining centers, horizontal machining centers with 6-pallet changers, moving column vertical machining centers and turn-mill machines. EARTH-CHAIN also installed magnetic fixture devices with built-in single-chip CPUs, combined with signal lines to connect and integrate automated peripheral equipment.
Including FANUC industrial robot integrated intelligent automated production, the first complete machine networking architecture is formed. In this way, while loading and unloading are quickly positioned and clamped, the machining center can also simultaneously process and produce, maintaining stable quality. It significantly increases production efficiency by 2.5 times, achieving the goal of 48-hour continuous material preparation and processing. This is truly a lights-out automated smart factory, reducing costs to allow for competition with thousands of foreign manufacturers and enabling greater product market share globally.
EARTH-CHAIN continues to strengthen its innovation and R&D capabilities, consolidate core technologies and prevent copycat manufacturers from seizing high-profit customized markets. Therefore, in the 36 years since its establishment, it has maintained a schedule of developing one patented product every two years. Regardless of size, it can be customized. Currently, customized products account for about 70% of total production, maintaining a market share of over 80% in the Taiwan customized product market and over 30% in the overseas market.
For example, EARTH-CHAIN's permanent magnet electro-control magnetic chuck series products, which have made significant breakthroughs in the market, use permanent magnets as the magnetic source, adjust the magnetic force with a numerical control system and use coils to control the direction of electromagnetic field conversion. They have the characteristic of not needing time recharging after one magnetization. EARTH-CHAIN also took the lead in introducing single-chip microcomputers into industrial automation systems, with an energy-saving design that precisely controls current output power, consuming less than one degree of electricity per operation, which greatly reduces costs caused by carbon emissions.
EARTH-CHAIN plans to exhibit its "Automated Silicon Cooling Heat Dissipation Magnetic Fixture Device" at this year's TIMTOS. It is designed to prevent the risk of coil burnout caused by excessive magnetic chuck temperature during rapid automated operation. The "Permanent Magnet Worktable Patented Automated Connection Control" solves the problem that automated permanent magnet chucks couldn’t previously be controlled in one operation.
The "Multi-zone Collaborative Control Patented Magnetic Fixture System" overcomes the time-consuming and labor-intensive problem of positioning and clamping during automated multi-piece processing of horizontal machine tools, while the "Automatic Alignment Fine-tuning Connector Magnetic Fixture Device" solves the problem of easy damage to quick connectors during automated magnetic chuck exchange.
There is also a patented "Vacuum Chuck" to solve the problem that large iron materials and non-magnetic special material workpieces cause for processing in industries such as aerospace and semiconductor as they cannot be automatically clamped and used together. Combined with the "Patented Magnetic Amplitude Spring Soft Jaw," which can adjust the height by itself, it solves the problem of difficult precision machining due to uneven workpiece deformation, solving the pain point of having to replace fixtures for each different material. EARTH-CHAIN combines robots to demonstrate the magnetic attraction of magnetic chucks for large workpieces and the precise control of magnetic force for small workpieces.
Dedicated Models Strengthen Cloud-to-Ground Connection, Developing Apps for Value-Added Applications
As for sawing machines, they are closer to a type of machine tool dedicated to specific industries, usually used as the first step in metal processing and manufacturing, which can first saw all raw materials into the required shapes to facilitate the subsequent improvement of processing and production efficiency and reduce waste. However, due to the different characteristics of steel materials from various upstream suppliers today, it is estimated that there are at least 100,000 kinds of metal materials globally, accumulating huge and complex material information, which causes the cutting speed, saw band tooth count and other parameters of sawing machines to be adjusted accordingly, often causing considerable trouble for end-user processing customers.
Currently, sawing machine manufacturers in addition to professional manufacturing and assembly equipment, must also include cutting parameters, tool (saw band) management and maintenance to assist customers in optimizing sawing efficiency and quality. Since 2014, EVERISING has taken the lead in upgrading its own medium and large metal band/circular sawing machines and launched intelligent models each year. Combining the concepts of big data and the Internet of Things (IoT), it successfully uses cloud and big data analysis technology to establish a DIKW network platform cutting database with more than 60,000 pieces of steel material data collected and accumulated globally over decades.
This stimulates network-assisted query and information service collaboration, combined with front-end and back-end machine IIoT sawing machine information system connection and integration capabilities. Customers can therefore be assisted quickly in selecting the most suitable cutting method and tools based on steel material properties, provided with suggestions and decision-making help to achieve sawing machine work efficiency optimization and move towards the smart manufacturing era.
Chen Chien-Chung, Vice General Manager of EVERISING Machine Co., stated that the company started gathering industry, government, academic and research resources in 2016 to develop the intelligent I TECH SAW application App. It also developed a dedicated PC-based numerical control system, which connects information flow through the OPC-UA interface, making it suitable for small and medium-sized enterprise customers with relatively weak digital capabilities.
The "I Tech System" has now been implemented at the customer end, directly communicating with all intelligent sawing machines equipped with EVERISING controllers in the factory through machine networking to obtain real-time information. The smarter function can directly import the cutting parameters by simply entering information such as materials, cutting efficiency requirements and selecting material diameter size, saw band type and more.
The machine directly informs of its speed, cutting rate, time spent and quickly obtains the best sawing parameters and high-performance sawing procedures. In response to constantly updating market trends, EVERISING has also invested in the research and development of diamond saw band cutting for difficult-to-cut materials such as aerospace-grade nickel-based alloys, quartz and silicon wafer crystal growth. This provides end-user processors with comprehensive sawing technology and services.
EVERISING is therefore prepared to benefit from the potential necessity for future sawing machines to connect to the customer's MES for information acquisition. Also, governments in European countries such as Italy, Spain and Czechia subsidize about 40-50% of the cost for operators to purchase machine networking equipment making such products very popular in the European market. Also, for customers in the Indian market, the demand for equipment with machine networking functions is also increasing.
EVERISING will exhibit the combination of I TECH SAW and sawing material database at this year's TIMTOS. They will show how they use edge computing to provide more accurate sawing parameter prediction services for individual customer machines, including cutting force, vibration and the use of image detection of residual chips to determine live sawing conditions.
The new presentation also reserves an interface for future connection with the customer's ERP or MES system, which can receive real-time messages from MES according to different customer needs and in accordance with sawing machine types. They can directly issue work order instructions to the machine or after printing a QR code, scan and log in at the machine end. The system will automatically match the settings and directly saw, achieving a true smart factory.
This avoids the previous situation that once sold to different customers, if they wanted to connect with their own ERP or MES, they always needed to arrange information engineering personnel to go to the customer's site to customize a set of systems for connection, making it simpler, more open and easier to maintain.
For multinational customers with strong digital capabilities, EVERISING provides the I TECH SAW system, allowing customers to use the cloud database and machine networking management functions to grasp real-time operating information, historical records and capacity analysis of all machines. They can also perform self-diagnosis, early warning and scheduled maintenance to avoid the risk of unexpected downtime and maximize production efficiency.
Faced with the current international net-zero carbon emission trend, the EU Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) and Taiwan's carbon free sub-laws are both following the 2026 implementation timeline. This inevitably requires comprehensive decarbonization efforts covering Scope 1 (direct) to Scope 3 (indirect) emissions to accelerate return on investment and to prevent companies from incurring huge costs due to unstable electricity prices/supply or export carbon taxes in the future. Highly efficient and precise machining and energy control has clearly become one of the key factors determining the success or failure of enterprises....
The current meaning of green transformation in the machinery industry includes promoting companies to accelerate their own transformation, reducing material, energy and resource consumption in production and operation. In terms of supply chain management, it promotes joint decarbonization with upstream suppliers and provides low-carbon equipment and integrated application solutions with low energy consumption and carbon emissions throughout the product lifecycle to assist downstream industry customers in achieving net-zero emission targets.
Rotary Table Drives Five-Axis Machining Applications - Achieving Energy Saving and Carbon Reduction with Half the Effort
For five-axis machining centers in the machine tool industry, the frequent operation of the A/C axis rotary worktables requires continuous feed drive. Therefore, DETRON, a leading manufacturer of rotary tables, has taken the lead in the component supply chain to drive energy saving and carbon reduction, which is expected to bring significant environmental benefits to machine tool and end-market users in the near future.
Jing-Fang Chen, Business Technology Supervisor of DETRON, pointed out that rotary tables, for machine tools, are not only high-priced products but also the moving parts with the highest carbon emissions. DETRON became the first rotary table manufacturer in Taiwan to pass ISO 14064-1 greenhouse gas inventory verification in 2023 with the assistance of the Precision Machinery Research & Development Center (PMC). Now, ISO 14955-1 has become an important reference point for internal design of high-efficiency components to reduce energy consumption while achieving the same processing performance.
In the early stage of DETRON’s product development, software analysis is used to analyze the friction of various mechanism configurations, which can be widely used in various types of industrial machinery and machine tools to effectively reduce energy consumption. Throughout the product lifecycle, software is used for effective element analysis to obtain the optimal design of lightweight components, reducing machine weight under the same rigidity and improving motor power utilization efficiency. Subsequently, energy consumption assessment is continuously carried out to achieve the goal of reducing energy waste and environmental impact.
Before the 2024 Japan International Machine Tool Fair (JIMTOF), DETRON received ISO 14955 certification with the assistance of PMC and cooperated closely with domestic and foreign machine tool manufacturers to provide its self-developed energy-saving rotary tables, changing the worm gear drive system of general rotary tables to a roller cam design. This has the advantages of high load capacity, low noise, low vibration and high reliability, directly transferring the energy-saving improvement results of this product to domestic/foreign end customers.
TAKISAWA in Japan also equipped its V40 machine with two different rotary tables from DETRON for equipment testing and jointly commissioned PMC for energy efficiency assessment of the worktables to achieve ISO 14955 energy-saving certification. Compared with competitors, TAKISAWA can also choose smaller motor specifications by using DETRON products to achieve the same speed and output, reducing A-axis power consumption by 10.32% and C-axis power consumption by 35.42% respectively. This helps to reduce equipment load, maintenance frequency and extend service life.
DETRON will exhibit its full range of energy-saving rotary tables equipped with DD direct drive motors and dual-lead roller cams at this year's TIMTOS, which can be used for large-panel machining of aerospace and vehicle components. The customization requirements for DD motor-driven turntables are high, including space, speed, torque and load limits, which provide customers with optimal selection.
Mr. Chen said that the roller cam-driven rotary table has the characteristics of high transmission efficiency, low energy consumption, high precision, wear resistance and long life. This makes it especially suitable for industries with extremely high requirements for precision, stability and reliability such as aerospace, automotive and semiconductor processing. It assists in the required high-precision machining and long-term stable operation of equipment, further improving production efficiency and reducing maintenance costs and has significant advantages in energy saving and long-term operation.
DETRON also independently masters the processing principles and design know-how of the dual-lead roller cam structure. Through processing application software, it increases the contact rate of DETRON's roller cam rotation, which contacts more than 4-5 rollers, reducing the vibration, abnormal noise and temperature rise often caused by interference of traditional roller cams. Compared with other Taiwanese and Japanese counterparts that only contact 2-3 rollers, it significantly increases the competitive advantage of 50% cutting rigidity. It is now also providing support for semiconductor industry customers for processing wafer materials, with hundreds of application examples accrued, and is expected to cooperate with 3-5 Taiwanese manufacturers at this year's TIMTOS.
Industrial Cooling: Precise Temperature Control Reduces Carbon Emissions While Enhancing Product Value
HABOR Precision Inc., a major manufacturer of industrial chillers which are one of the key components of machine tools, emphasizes how to overcome the impact of temperature changes on various aspects of processing equipment. This is crucial for improving processing accuracy and is also the core value of HABOR in creating differentiation in the face of fierce competition from domestic and foreign competitors.
The geometric dimensions of parts are the decisive factor in machines’ assembly accuracy, thus influencing the machining yield, the stability, quality and performance of a machine tool. How to improve production capacity, reduce product defect rates and improve production efficiency through precise temperature control plays a crucial role in the high-tech, medical and even aerospace industries.
After the concept of German Industry 4.0 was introduced to Taiwan in 2013, HABOR began to investigate market demand and consider a new product development direction. Until the EU began to require energy saving and levy refrigerant carbon tax (F-GAS regulations) in 2017, HABOR was ready to mass-produce low-carbon products needed by customers, which coincided with the industry's close attention to smart manufacturing and carbon neutrality issues at that time.
HABOR passed the ISO 14955 energy efficiency label certification, assisted by PMC in 2024, and will exhibit its latest HIG series of intelligent energy-saving DC inverter chillers at this year's TIMTOS. The series features high precision, intelligence, environmental protection and energy saving.
Because it adopts ±0.1K high-precision temperature control, the chillers are finely adjusted through the temperature compensation design circuit of the refrigerant system. Through the frequency change of the inverter, the cooling system's ability is controlled, which greatly reduces residual cooling and residual heat. This achieves improved temperature balance efficiency and quickly and stably controls the fluctuation of the coolant, improving processing stability. By precisely cooling the machine tool spindle, it reduces wear on tools and linear guides/screws, extends service life and improves machining accuracy as well as offering corresponding solutions for difficult-to-cut materials.
At the same time, according to customer controller requirements, big data such as pressure, temperature, flow rate and power are collected through intelligent remote monitoring. The data is uploaded to the cloud or designated locations such as machine tools for analysis through various transmission interfaces RS485, MOBUS, EtherCAT, and PROFINET, presenting single/multi-machine processing status on the remote screen. This reduces information transmission time, improves customer convenience, grasps the health status and energy consumption of the chiller, predicts maintenance needs and quickly provides market services.
In addition to assisting machine tool manufacturing and assembly and end-user processing companies in full energy saving and carbon reduction, HABOR also cooperates with machinery manufacturers' large-scale strategy to implement it in its own supply chain and manufacturing to help them increase precision and added value. By selecting more efficient inverter compressors, self-developed inverter controllers, EC/DC fans and IE5 motors, its energy-saving efficiency is on par with Japanese counterparts, which can save more than 60% on electricity consumption.
Also, HABOR has introduced fourth-generation refrigerants on its chiller that meet the GWP (Global Warming Potential), delivering higher energy-saving benefits equal to European automakers’ commitment to reducing carbon emissions to meet the annual reduction requirements of European and American regulations. In HABOR's self-built laboratory, live tests simulating extreme temperatures are continuously carried out under various environments and different heat loads of new and old refrigerants are tested at the customer's end to avoid heat waste. In the future, they plan to introduce AI for collection, simulation, learning and other functions to improve energy-saving optimization benefits.
Machine Tools Combined with Automation Equipment Gradually Simplify Energy Saving
CAMPRO, a major machine tool manufacturer, has also invested in the field of smart machinery since 2016 in response to the increasing global emphasis on ESG issues. Starting with factory visualization management, it provides a series of smart manufacturing factory solutions. However, since there are few automated factories with many machines in Taiwan's processing and manufacturing industry, CAMPRO focuses on automation production line planning for small-batch diversified production, flexible human-machine collaboration and multi-task machining applications which are increasing significantly in demand.
CAMPRO believes that while current machine tools are quite energy-efficient during the machining process, if you want to achieve energy saving and carbon reduction benefits you still need to start with a single machine and rely on the partnering equipment manufacturers to provide variable frequency energy-saving systems for more immediate results. Because most of CAMPRO's technology comes from academic research and can be independently controlled, they avoid technical restrictions from other manufacturers and are able to provide professional application engineers and service team support in pre-sales evaluation, delivery and installation, and after-sales. Their optimized ESG equipment ensures that customers get improved productivity and optimize their investment costs.
From the product design and development stage, CAMPRO adopts virtual machine tool design and development technology to establish a servo motor control model. Through mechatronics integration simulation technology, it optimizes lightweight design and reduces trial and error costs and resource waste. At the same time, with structural analysis and stability mechatronics integration topology optimization design technology, the machine achieves balance between the structure and electromechanical systems such as motors, effectively reducing the weight of moving parts and the required motor power to achieve energy saving and eliminate waste in the R&D stage. It also improves the dynamic rigidity and natural frequency of the machine, achieving more precise and stable machining capabilities and realizes high product quality and reliability.
In the machine building stage, precise design and optimization processes are used to reduce production material waste and improve resource utilization. Several improvements include using energy-saving components, such as servo motor hydraulic tanks, which save about 76% of energy compared to traditional hydraulic tanks. The modular design of the whole machine increases the flexibility of replacing parts for upgrades and maintenance, reduces the motor's transmission power output, increases speed, reduces energy consumption and carbon emissions to meet the standards expected of future manufacturing.
When the machines are shipped to the customer's factory for processing and use, CAMPRO provides its self-developed "PRO ME" human-machine interface system which offers full processing information and management assistance. Combined with the Digital Twin pre-simulation function developed in cooperation with controller manufacturers, CAMPRO’s customers can understand the machining action and quality of the workpiece while staying remotely in the office.
At the same time, they integrate measurement systems on the machines to reduce testing time and material waste and they collaborate with the system makers through trial use and verification to confirm production quality, which avoids affecting sales due to high prices and enhances product added value. CAMPRO recommends customers simplify and reduce steps when processing special materials to quickly replicate and teach customers how to use them, and they will also provide related macro programs. Whenever the user enters the size specifications, they can be automatically processed and the system will become more and more accurate as a result.
At TIMTOS 2025, CAMPRO will launch its latest self-developed products, including temperature compensation systems and the PRO ME human-machine interface, focusing on digital tools and higher-value turning and milling multi-function machines to meet diversified continuous processing needs. Their presentation will also feature advanced automation integration solutions for single-arm industrial robot automatic loading and unloading and online rapid measurement equipment to meet the automation needs of customers of different scales, improving production efficiency and product quality.
