50% productivity boost at Neptune

Hertford-based Neptune Engineering has continued investing in the latest Sodick die-sink technology by acquiring a new AD35L machine from Sodi-Tech EDM. Offering up to 50% more speed than the machine it replaced, the Sodick AD35L has eliminated a bottleneck and delivered important extra capacity to this progressive toolmaking specialist.

“Due to increasing order books we were encountering a bottleneck in our die-sink EDM processes,” states managing director Gary Statham. “We had an ageing machine that needed replacing, so the decision was taken to invest. Having had such good performance from our existing Sodick machines over the past five years, we decided to return to Sodi-Tech EDM.”
As luck would have it, soon after the AD35L had been installed, a significant order arrived from one of Neptune’s electrical industry customers for a series of six-cavity injection moulds. The tools are used to mould domestic plugs, sockets and switches for a major electrical brand.
“The timing could not have been better – as the new Sodick is at least 50% faster than the machine it replaced, we have been able to process the tooling much quicker,” says Statham. “Our new Sodick machine will be busy on this work for a number of months to come.”
Each mould tool and insert is complex, as plugs, sockets and switches typically contain features such as compound curvature, blended radii and freeform surfaces. The cavities and inserts produced by the new Sodick AD35L are all manufactured from tool steels such as H13 to tolerances within ±0.01 mm. Moreover, the company typically seeks a ‘zero finish’, essentially a polished surface which does not require any secondary operations; a factor that is readily accommodated by the AD35L.
For further information www.sodi-techedm.co.uk