Control Design – May 2019

CNC SPECIALIST NUM has helped the Chinese machine building

company Original Point Machine Tools (OPMT) to develop an

advanced eight-axis CNC machining center capable of process-

ing many different types of materials, including metal, ceram-

ics, glass and cemented carbide.

The project is a corporation of three parts, which are OPMT,

the machine builder; Xi’an Zhongke Microcrystalline Manu-

facturing, the laser system provider; and Guangdong Industry

University, the buyer and investor.

OPMT is a relatively small but fast-growing company that’s

acquiring a reputation for complex engineering: after develop-

ing a four-axis milling center for an automotive production

line, it then created a compact five-axis milling station for the

dental indust r y.

OPMT has built some five-axis milling machines, which are

targeted to the dental industry for titanium teeth, so, combined

with the laser provider, they established this project.

For its latest project, OPMT was asked by Guangdong

University of Technology to develop a machining center that

combined high-speed laser cutting and milling capabilities.

This provincial university is located in Guangzhou, Guang-

dong Province, China, and provides a wide range of courses,

with a major emphasis on engineering. OPMT chose to partner

with NUM for its CNC expertise and with the Xi’an Zhongke

Microcrystalline Manufacturing and the Chinese Academy of

Sciences to help with some of the complex materials process-

ing issues (Figure 1 ).

Because OPMT already has the experience of creating NUM

part programs by CAM software, for this machine, we just did

the function commissioning part. I know they tested an impel-

ler milling when the machine was still in OPMT’s workshop; it

was not yet tested for laser cutting. The laser system’s mirrors

need to be calibrated after the machine is finally installed.

Then they delivered the machine to the university in a hurry

because the project verification deadline was coming.

The machine is still in test procedure in the university lab,

explains Fu. We have not yet gotten the latest news from OPMT.

ControlDesign.com / May 2019 / 33

High-speed laser cutting and milling

with single clamping operations

Chinese machine builder develops advanced eight-axis CNC multi-function machining center

By Gerddy Fu, NUM Numerical Control Technology

CNC expertise

Figure 1: The ML125 machining center is entirely controlled by NUM’s latest-

generation Flexium+ 68 CNC platform.

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