Precision for the world's largest telescope

Milling machine from Grob

High-precision milled components from Nova for the ELT. © Nova/coarse

As a state-funded institution, Nova was bound by a tendering process for the new machine. "One of our main requirements was to produce components with the same tolerance as before in the range of ten to 20 micrometres, and over a distance of more than one meter," emphasizes Niels Tromp, System Engineer at Nova. After the tender, the company first looked at the available options. After extensive evaluation, four manufacturers were shortlisted. Further selection procedures revealed that only one provider met all the requirements. The G750 from Grob was chosen. The G750 is a powerful milling machining center for high precision and efficiency, providing the stability and accuracy required to produce the complex parts for the ELT's astronomical instruments.

Integration of the milling machine into the production processes

With the G750 five-axis universal machine, customers in industrial production achieve first-class results in the milling of large workpieces. © Nova/coarse

The integration of the G750 into the manufacturing process has brought decisive advantages. Nova's monolithic design philosophy, which minimizes the number of interfaces and combines many individual components into a single part, has helped to reduce alignment and tolerance issues. The milling machine makes it possible to manufacture the components with exceptional precision, which was crucial for the construction of the astronomical instruments.

Large-format workpiece for the telescope. © Nova/coarse

The system with the integrated G750 shows that it is also suitable for the high-precision industry. By controlling the entire design and manufacturing process internally, many risks can be minimized, resulting in greater efficiency and quality of the manufactured parts.

Five-axis universal machining center

The Nova Institute, an association of the four leading university astronomy institutes in the Netherlands. © Nova/coarse

"I can confidently say that the G750 from Grob has more than met our expectations and that the components we are now producing are fully in line with the specifications and even exceed what we expected from the manufacture," states Thomas Wijnen, Instrumentation Coordinator at Nova. With the G750 five-axis universal machine, industrial manufacturing customers achieve first-class results in the milling of large workpieces. With working paths of 1,000 millimetres in the X-axis, 1,100 millimetres in the Y-axis and 1,175 millimetres in the Z-axis, large components can be produced with precision.

Nova researches the stars

Nova is an internationally renowned association of the four leading university astronomy institutes in the Netherlands. The aim is to participate in world-class astronomical facilities and to make leading contributions to astronomy research. In view of the construction of the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) in Chile, the largest optical telescopes in the world, NOVA took over the leadership of an international consortium that is developing one of the first instruments for this telescope.