Joma-Maschinenbau's range of services includes CNC turning and CNC milling as well as surface and cylindrical grinding. The manufacturing spectrum is rounded off by welding, polishing and wet painting, final assembly and quality control. With a network of partner companies, Joma carries out all necessary special forms of machining such as broaching and deep-hole drilling as well as heat treatment and any coating requirements. The materials processed include various steels, aluminum and other non-ferrous metals, model casting and, last but not least, various plastics.

Expansion of the machine park

"We manufacture high-quality individual parts as well as small and medium-sized series," explains Arnold Gerhardt from Joma-Maschinenbau. "We also assemble complete ready-to-install assemblies that are used directly by the customer in final assembly." Gerhardt is responsible for CNC milling. Workpieces with a maximum length of 2000 mm and width of 600 mm are machined here. Joma has modern CNC machining centers with 3 to 5 axes available for this purpose. A new addition is a POSmill H500U 5-axis milling machine. With X/Y/Z travels of 650/750/500, a table diameter of 500 cm and a load capacity of 500 kg, the new system helps to round off Joma's production spectrum, particularly in the area of larger components.

In order to make optimum use of the new machining center, Joma purchased products from Kipp at the same time: mainly the 5-axis clamp KippflexX as well as various accessories such as a clamping set, clamping jaws with pins, support bars and matching torque wrenches. "We have already worked successfully with quick-release clamps from Kipp in the welding department," says Gerhardt, explaining the decision to use Kipp. "Clamping levers have also solved problems in our assembly department. So we knew that we were buying a high-quality solution here."

Flexible 5-axis clamp with two functions

"KippflexX is a versatile solution for any 5-axis milling machine that can be used for both workpiece blank clamping and pull-down clamping," explains Daniel Kaupp, sales engineer for clamping technology at Kipp. "This is unique on the market." The patented pull-down function is particularly suitable for pre-machined workpieces. Thanks to the symmetrical design, the workpiece is always centered - a very high repeat accuracy is guaranteed. The system can also be used like a standard vice: Clamping jaws with pins are used for clamping raw parts, which press positively into the material, eliminating the need for time-consuming pre-stamping.

The KippflexX 5-axis clamp is available in various clamping widths. © Heinrich Kipp plant

A support height of 180 mm ensures optimum accessibility for the tool on 5-axis milling machines. A flat guide ensures greater stability and rigidity of the system, which achieves a high clamping force of 52 kN. For use on a base plate, the user requires three adapter shafts and an extension shaft. The clamping range can be significantly extended with an additional base plate and extension shafts. KippflexX is suitable for mounting on machine tables with T-slots or threaded holes. A center bore ensures centric alignment. The base plate is equipped with alignment grooves in the longitudinal and transverse directions. However, the product can also be mounted on any grid elements and directly on zero-point clamping systems. The clamping physics with intelligent force distribution ensure that no torques are transferred to the machine table.

Versatile advantages in practice

Joma's experience with KippflexX has been consistently positive so far. "Our components are securely fixed, even at low clamping depths," says Arnold Gerhardt. "The active pull-down enables extremely precise machining with a very good repeat accuracy of 0.01 mm as well as maximum clamping and holding forces." The latter are applied directly to the workpiece - this prevents vibrations during machining. Another guarantee for high accuracy is the special force ratio in the vice, which completely eliminates distortion of the base plate or even the machine table.

"Whether first or second clamping, individual or series parts - with KippflexX we always achieve a high degree of parallelism of the components. The versatile accessories are also helpful, as they allow us to perform all tasks optimally," says Gerhardt. "The good accessibility should also be emphasized. This is a great advantage, especially for very small workpieces and challenging contours." Because the 5-axis clamp is very easy to operate, handling errors are virtually eliminated. Only a few simple steps are required to convert the system - saving the experts at Joma time and money. So it's no wonder that a second 5-axis clamp was purchased after a short time. Joma needs it to be able to fix larger components in parallel. "Here you can see in practice that the system is variably expandable," concludes Daniel Kaupp. "Whether small or large workpieces - with the vice clamping or the centric pull-down clamping, all options remain open."