As a subcontract manufacturer that offers 3 to 5-axis machining, multi-pallet and lights out production, Suffolk based CTPE Ltd has recently invested in an Averex horizontal machining centre from Whitehouse Machine Tools.
The MTD team travelled to Mildenhall to find out more. Established in 1989 as a precision engineering company offering prototypes and small batches, CTPE has grown to become a leading subcontract supplier for machined components to the defence, medical, electronics and scientific industries -now offering medium to higher volume production capabilities. The company undertakes this with a plant list that includes a HAAS VF2, three Brother Speedio machines, a new Biglia B620 turning centre, a HAAS ST-10 and two sliding head turning centres from Tornos. The latest addition is the Averex HS-450i horizontal machining centre that is fitted with 500mm twin pallets, 15,000rpm BBT40 spindle, 60m/min rapids, 80 tool ATC and high pressure through spindle coolant. Alex Taylor from CTPE says: “We like the Averex machine because its fast, powerful and really accurate as well.
We’ve had a change in the dynamic of the business, and we started to get much busier with more complex parts in higher volumes, so we needed to change our machines to suit those parts. With the Averex, we definitely get a lot for our money. It’s a highly specced machine and a very well made hand-built machine to very high standards whilst being a very cost-effective package.” “We have 80 tools in the machine at the moment and we can expand this in the future if we need to. We can expand the tool changer and also the pallets that can be expanded from 2 to 6. The work envelope is large, and it has 500mm pallets fitted at the moment, but it also accepts 400mm pallets and you can mix and match the two.
We can also go up to 1m in height on the pallet.” “We are mainly machining aluminium due to the fields that we work in, but with the complexity of the parts we machine, we are using the fourth axis on the machine to hit multiple sides of the parts in one go. The spindle is very powerful and fast, and we have a 15,000rpm BBT40 spindle with a peak power of 37kW, which makes it a really good machine for ref machining regardless of the material type.” Referring to Whitehouse Machine Tools and the Averex brand, Alex says: “Averex are a specialist machine builder that only focuses on horizontal machining centres. They are experts in horizontal machines, we also have the FANUC CNC control that we have on our other machines, as we like the simplicity of the control, and they are very easy to use.”
