The new, twin-head Rover A Plus brings versatility and production increases to Biesse’s most compact CNC machining centre.
If you are in the market for a compact CNC machining centre that’s versatile enough to tackle complex joinery as well as panel processing, there are some new and very interesting features to be found on Biesse’s recently-launched Rover A Plus that you won’t find elsewhere for the same price point. This latest technology contains some real game-changers.
The Rover A has been around for quite a while. Its well-proven frame can be configured to suit flat-table nesting operations or accommodate any shape of material in a pod and rail specification. For window, door and stair production, there are many different operations and while a pod and rail equipped Rover A will tackle complex shapes with ease, manufacturers who needed more tools, or more flexibility often had to step up to the more expensive and much larger Rover B to get the functionality they needed. Enter the Rover A Plus, a twin-head machine that’s not as big or as costly as a Rover B but has the capacity for 83 tools on board and some very clever technology that could give you as much as 24% more productivity than a Rover A.
Michael Clack, Technical Applications Manager for CNC and Drilling at Biesse UK explains that “The Rover A Plus is different to the Rover A in so far as it can have two individual heads on it, but to keep the price down, the second head is equipped with what we call multifunction units – for example, a dedicated unit for vertical routing operations, an aggregate for horizontal machining, a blade, or a drill head. Every time the main head needs to do a tool change, we put an operation with the multifunction unit into the program that negates the tool-change time. Depending on what processing style or materials you use, a Rover A Plus will save time, reduce the number of tool changes needed and the number of tools needed inside the machine.”
A standard Rover A can hold a maximum of 45 tools within various tool-changers. With the Rover A Plus, we’ve increased that to 83. However, with the ability to hold more tools comes another problem: if the machine is travelling further distances to locate tools, that takes time. To solve the problem, we’ve added something called Toologic into the machine. With Toologic, it recognises the program it’s running next and moves all the tools it needs into its high-speed toolchanger – the one that travels along with the machine. The program is optimised automatically without any intervention from the operator. It looks at the programs required and in real time, runs through the list, itemising the tools it needs and positioning them based on how often they will be needed.
The Rover A Plus uses the same pod and rail systems as the Rover A and there’s a choice of ATS (Advanced Table-Setting System) with fast manual positioning of the clamping systems; SA (Set-Up Assistance) that includes linear sensors in the worktable and an anti-collision function; EPS (Electronic Positioning System) for automatic positioning; FPS (Feedback Positioning System) with self-learning of manually selected positions of vacuum modules and clamps; and XPS (Extreme Positioning System), which has a motor on every worktable and every carriage that enables simultaneous automatic positioning of all the locking systems in 16 fully independent locking areas. “It’s possible to work two separate sections of the machine simultaneously,” says Michael.
With the Rover A Plus, Biesse has also added an auto start function, which removes one button press from the process and a time-saving feature called Dynamic Parking.