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Hydratight’s industry-leading portable thread-milling service now in the US
26 January 2009
After the major success of its European launch, Hydratight's industry-beating new large-bore thread milling machine has arrived in the US region.
American personnel are in the final stages of training to operate a second portable geniSYS 220 3D milling machine, which will almost immediately enter service within the North American region.
The service offers a unique boost to repair speeds and costs - because for the first time, complex 3D milling and thread repair services are completely portable and astonishingly accurate.
In trials on a selection of demanding jobs the geniSYS 220 machine proved its viability in bad conditions, outdoors and under major time and cost restraints - and each time was better than traditional methods by a huge margin.
The success continues as the unit enters full commercial service. Major contracts have been completed in Britain, South Africa and Germany and seminars and workshops (coming soon to North America) to demonstrate the unit in use invariably fill up in record time. (If you are interested in seeing the machine in action, contact Chris Leonard, see below).
The advantage of the unit is clear to anyone who sees it working: the geniSYS 220 has been developed to allow ultra-accurate, in-situ machining of large bores and threads - up to 220mm (8.75in) across and up to 300mm (12in) deep, and to cut complex 3D internal spaces and Imperial and Metric threads on demand.
This work is extremely difficult or simply unachievable outside the workshop. The geniSYS 220 does away with the need to undertake major disassembly and all its associated costs and downtime and at the same time produces a state-of-the-art result without requiring a team of engineers. In fact the unit can be operated by one technician and thanks to CNC control, work is completely repeatable.
The Hydratight geniSYS 220 3D milling unit is now available for hire anywhere in the world. It has already proved itself in jobs in the engine room of a ship in South Africa, on a 350-tonne automotive press destined for China and at a petrochemicals plant in Germany.
Product manager Chris Leonard is under no illusions about the need for the geniSYS machine: "It's a truly amazing piece of equipment,' he says.
"Services that would previously simply not have been available without massive dismantling and shipping can be undertaken, because the geniSYS 220 is not only far more accurate but completely self-contained too, with its own machine head, control unit and power supply."
The system was originally designed to overcome the problem of machining large-bore threaded closures for gas and steam turbines, but in tests over two years the geniSYS 220 proved itself useful in a wider range of applications: from refurb and thread-cutting on screwed casings to the complex milling of 3D internal spaces, remaking threaded connections on huge marine diesels to weld-prep on large vessels, and much more. It is a far better, solution for boring-out threaded holes in new and corroded materials, for example, than the common spark-erosion method.
"The geniSYS 220 brings a level of accuracy and power simply unattainable by manual operation," said Chris. This was proved on the machine's first marine outing during field trials.
A ship in dock in Durban, South Africa for major refurbishment after many years needed an overhaul on its huge MAN B&W five-cylinder diesel.
"Some of the cylinder head studs needed replacing and the only way to do this was to bore out the old studs with drills, retap the holes manually and insert new studs.
"It sounds easy on paper, but these were big, M95 studs in old, corroded metal, and five senior technicians and two labourers had spent 10 days and blunted four taps, but had succeeded in replacing none of the 14 damaged studs. As a test run our operator made up a special mounting plate, set it up and cut all 14 studs in three days - to an accuracy the team couldn't otherwise have dreamed of.
"Word got round and we have since had enquiries from power generation, oil and gas, transport and metals companies to work on their in-situ problems.
"When you compare the cost of using geniSYS 220 to the hundreds of thousands of dollars such work could take in machine downtime, our service charges become pretty insignificant. It's no wonder our order book is already filing up."
Contact Chris by email: chris.leonard@hydratight.com
web: www.hydratight.com
