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What is the difference between a CNC milling machine and a CNC machining center? In fact, this problem is not only confusing for laymen, but also many people in the industry can’t tell the difference.

Simply put, a CNC machining center is an upgraded version of a CNC milling machine. In fact, these two processing equipment mainly have the following three differences:

The biggest difference is whether there is a tool magazine

Ordinary CNC milling machines also have CNC operating systems (such as Japan’s Fanuc, Germany’s Siemens, China’s Huazhong or Guangshu, etc.), and also have three feed axes and a rotating spindle. They are processed in exactly the same geometry and can also achieve basically the same processing capacity.

The biggest difference between them is whether the equipment has a tool magazine or not. A CNC machining center is actually a CNC milling machine with a tool magazine. The CNC machining center can realize one clamping and complete the work of multiple processing procedures such as milling and drilling. Machining, tapping, etc., because automatic tool change can be realized, and in the continuous processing of multiple processes, the operator does not need manual intervention, as long as the program is written and the tool and corresponding parameters are configured. That’s it. Not so with CNC milling machines. CNC milling machines can also realize multiple processes in one clamping. The difference is that in the process of process changeover, the tool must be changed manually, so the machining process has many degrees of discontinuity and discontinuity. Execution, such machining is slightly inferior to cnc machining centers in terms of machining quality and machining efficiency.

The difference between CNC milling machine and CNC machining center

So when you see a piece of equipment in the future, you can directly judge whether it is a CNC milling machine or a CNC machining center by whether it has a tool magazine. It’s a gold standard.

Whether it is full protection

In fact, this is not absolute for many devices. Many CNC milling machines have gradually begun to make fully protected processing methods. Of course, there are also many older CNC milling machines that still use open machining or semi-protected machining. This is different from the current CNC machining center to a certain extent. Of course, this difference is not absolute.

In fact, this has a lot to do with the development process of the device. In the early days of CNC machining equipment, many manufacturers did not pay much attention to appearance design and safety protection, and basically stayed on functional requirements, so many CNC milling machines were made open, or the better one was semi-open. Although this CNC milling machine does not have many defects in function, it still exists in terms of processing safety and processing environment. There are great disadvantages, such as the high-temperature iron filings generated by processing will splash on people, causing harm to the human body, and the coolant used to cool the tool during processing will also splash on the operator, contaminating the tool. Therefore, although the research and development of production equipment has made progress, especially the invasion of foreign high-end equipment, the design and manufacture of processing equipment in my country has also taken a big step towards a more user-friendly and beautiful direction. Multi-art road.

It’s a process, and any progress requires a process. Product technology and product art are the unified requirements of future industrial products and the only way for the future development of industrial products.

Whether with automatic chip conveyor

Like the previous one, this standard is not an absolute one. It is also a mobile standard based on the development process of processing equipment. This is also the case because the previous device had some hindsight in development. Due to the choice, many new CNC milling machines are basically equipped with full protection and automatic chip conveyors, which are not much different from CNC machining centers.

But for those older CNC mills, the standard still holds true. After all, a device without even protection would not dare to ask for automatic chip removal anyway. In fact, the current machinery industry practitioners should be grateful. In this era, which provides the technology and the ability to free our hands so that we can do our jobs more easily and efficiently, this liberation of the workforce is accelerating madness with the full development of Industry 4.0. Even to eliminate many labors or methods of labor, we must always be ready.

Based on the above reasons, if you want to choose a piece of equipment, of course, it is better to choose a CNC machining center. At least in terms of machining efficiency, the machining range is also much larger, especially the turntable with the fourth axis, which is simply a magic weapon.

If you want to learn a machining equipment, you should also learn the operation of cnc machining center. At least the programming is more complicated, and the design of the fixture and the preparation of the machining process are also more complicated. After all, it is necessary to do compound processing. Detection technology and ability, of course, this is also the guarantee of processing quality.