MTD CNC featuring Hurco CNC: It's an Art to CNC Machine Like This
We would like to thank MTD CNC for allowing us to share this video they made recently at Bournemouth University of Arts. Bournemouth recently opened their doors to MTD CNC, having purchased new Hurco CNC machines, the investment was part of a program to support local manufacturing, as Paul found out. Hurco is proud to work with educational institutions to help provide the necessary training to a younger generation of CNC Machinists who will help today's modern CNC machine shop become more productive.
Video Transcript:
David we're here at the Arts University in Bournemouth what's the relevance of our visit today? We have an open day today it's called a make it workshop we're working closely together with arts university Bournemouth and a couple of
other universities. And I think what's nice about this is it's it's it's quite an interesting application, so they're involved very much with prototype in industrial design innovative manufacturing.It's better to say your machines are a perfect fit aren't they for this facility? Yeah that's true I think what we like about and this type of application is the controls are open to anything so whether it's a sketch whether it's 3d design a model whatever it is really a bit of reverse engineering we can get from a concept to the first off finished part as quickly and easily as possible. And it's it common for you to be having installations like this around colleges and universities in the UK? It is growing yeah we're finding there's a lot of interest, there's a lot there's some good investment in the right kind of vocational training and I think you've seen places like Coakley's College, Wolverhampton University, and so forth there's there's a lot of opportunity here and they're training the engineers and designers and manufacturers of the future. I suppose the key to you is when students go through here and they go out into the big wide world and the engineering community they want Hurco? I assume I think yes that that's that's been a positive and certainly even speaking to the lecturers here they they you know people move around and talk to other people and they immediately say oh well I used to go there that's ideal for this type of work, but but yeah I think when we're at an event like this it's the enthusiasm for young people to learn and get involved in our industry.
other universities. And I think what's nice about this is it's it's it's quite an interesting application, so they're involved very much with prototype in industrial design innovative manufacturing.It's better to say your machines are a perfect fit aren't they for this facility? Yeah that's true I think what we like about and this type of application is the controls are open to anything so whether it's a sketch whether it's 3d design a model whatever it is really a bit of reverse engineering we can get from a concept to the first off finished part as quickly and easily as possible. And it's it common for you to be having installations like this around colleges and universities in the UK? It is growing yeah we're finding there's a lot of interest, there's a lot there's some good investment in the right kind of vocational training and I think you've seen places like Coakley's College, Wolverhampton University, and so forth there's there's a lot of opportunity here and they're training the engineers and designers and manufacturers of the future. I suppose the key to you is when students go through here and they go out into the big wide world and the engineering community they want Hurco? I assume I think yes that that's that's been a positive and certainly even speaking to the lecturers here they they you know people move around and talk to other people and they immediately say oh well I used to go there that's ideal for this type of work, but but yeah I think when we're at an event like this it's the enthusiasm for young people to learn and get involved in our industry.
How did you go about winning the funding for these machines? They nearly served a machines this is part of a European Regional Development Fund so it was made it was actually earmarked the Dorset because the government had identified that there was an issue in productivity in the region and because our economy is primarily SMEs you have about 90 percent
SMEs in the region and about 80% of those 10 people or less. So if you're going to try and grow the economy you
need to help those companies develop new products new services. So it's something you're offering them now they're in the
local community how does it work if I was an SME locally what would I do? There are different ways of going about it once we have access to all this kids in the workshop so you can come in and use our CNC machines, 3d printers, CNC routers, digital fabric printing, silversmithing. And you get free access to help create your product we also have match funded grants so if you're going to be spending up to 10,000 pounds developing a product you can apply to us and claim back half of those costs, we also have access to staff and students who have a lot of design 3d and 2d designers and makers and they can help you with different aspects of the design process. How long have these machines been here and has it worked thus far what you were just suggesting? Yeah it's been really good the machines have been in since January and we just you know we spent a little while bedding them in because it was a bit of a gear change for the institution and so we had to make sure they work properly before he went out the communities. They come in and start using them but the takeoffs been fantastic particular to 3d printing machine and the CNC milling because it's stuff that people don't have access to where they do have access to it on their day to day. both babies to churn out the past to get the investment back whereas here we set them up so they can be more experimental you can try out one piece and see if it works. Does it help the fact that they're Hurco's? Yeah they are really easy to use they're quite intuitive machines they're very adaptable and the guys that run our workshop they've they've worked from a variety of disciplines they've used a variety of tools that's but they're not engineers they're coming from very different backgrounds yet with you know a bit of training a bit of support a bit of experimentation they take to the machines are very very quickly.
SMEs in the region and about 80% of those 10 people or less. So if you're going to try and grow the economy you
need to help those companies develop new products new services. So it's something you're offering them now they're in the
local community how does it work if I was an SME locally what would I do? There are different ways of going about it once we have access to all this kids in the workshop so you can come in and use our CNC machines, 3d printers, CNC routers, digital fabric printing, silversmithing. And you get free access to help create your product we also have match funded grants so if you're going to be spending up to 10,000 pounds developing a product you can apply to us and claim back half of those costs, we also have access to staff and students who have a lot of design 3d and 2d designers and makers and they can help you with different aspects of the design process. How long have these machines been here and has it worked thus far what you were just suggesting? Yeah it's been really good the machines have been in since January and we just you know we spent a little while bedding them in because it was a bit of a gear change for the institution and so we had to make sure they work properly before he went out the communities. They come in and start using them but the takeoffs been fantastic particular to 3d printing machine and the CNC milling because it's stuff that people don't have access to where they do have access to it on their day to day. both babies to churn out the past to get the investment back whereas here we set them up so they can be more experimental you can try out one piece and see if it works. Does it help the fact that they're Hurco's? Yeah they are really easy to use they're quite intuitive machines they're very adaptable and the guys that run our workshop they've they've worked from a variety of disciplines they've used a variety of tools that's but they're not engineers they're coming from very different backgrounds yet with you know a bit of training a bit of support a bit of experimentation they take to the machines are very very quickly.
A bit of insight there Frederick from Daniel as to how the arts University of Bournemouth actually operates but what's your role here? So I'm the lead technician in the digital workshop, I'm in charge of the full kit here so with everything from laser cutters, 3d printers, CNC routers to the to Hurco mills that you've got really behind us. What would what would a day-to-day duties involve? So it's everything from machine maintenance to helping students and external companies
from designing their pieces through to manufacturing testing prototyping taking those pieces out and finishing them off as well. We give sort of a whole service here and your qualifications yourself you've got a degree in model making? Yes but no sort of engineering papers or or metal cutting experience so how easy has it been to get to grips with let's say for example the machine tool our main reasons that we opted for the Hurco's is because it works on a WinMax kind of a system so it's very similar to just the Microsoft windows-based computer system so if you can navigate through that it's quite easy to work your way through sort of the conversational side of the machines as well as that it's leaning a lot towards sort of tool pathing and programming designing on CAD cam and again that's just using computers. So I would say that they are there's still quite a very simple layout you do still need some understanding of machining to use them but yeah there's a huge amount of material out there that it is quite easy. I said at the start this where would your day start and where would it end let's say we found out where it would start where would it generally end I'd like to think well we've been taken away a finished product I suppose something nice there they're happy with that's what we'd go with that would be the ideal end of the day.
from designing their pieces through to manufacturing testing prototyping taking those pieces out and finishing them off as well. We give sort of a whole service here and your qualifications yourself you've got a degree in model making? Yes but no sort of engineering papers or or metal cutting experience so how easy has it been to get to grips with let's say for example the machine tool our main reasons that we opted for the Hurco's is because it works on a WinMax kind of a system so it's very similar to just the Microsoft windows-based computer system so if you can navigate through that it's quite easy to work your way through sort of the conversational side of the machines as well as that it's leaning a lot towards sort of tool pathing and programming designing on CAD cam and again that's just using computers. So I would say that they are there's still quite a very simple layout you do still need some understanding of machining to use them but yeah there's a huge amount of material out there that it is quite easy. I said at the start this where would your day start and where would it end let's say we found out where it would start where would it generally end I'd like to think well we've been taken away a finished product I suppose something nice there they're happy with that's what we'd go with that would be the ideal end of the day.
