Ram Precision Finds Success With Micromachining

From a distance the holes are so small they can hardly be seen. But up close, Rudi Bauknecht, Sr. shows off the detail of a part he is proud to be able to make—a transfer mold for ceramic capacitors for a high-end electronics manufacturer.

What makes this mold so special is that the 6.4 x 6.6 inch mold has 7,850 holes in it, in addition to a carefully machined backside—a true precision job. And he says he has only been able to make this part thanks to the addition of a Makino Edge2 sinker EDM machine with fine-hole machining option.

Bauknecht Sr. has been making these capacitor molds for a while, but just last summer his customer came to him with an order to substantially increase production. Because an outside vendor was doing all the fine-hole work, Ram Precision had minimal control over delivery and no control over manufacturing quality.

So, he decided to see what it would take to bring this capability in house. He and his son, Rudi Jr., went to Makino, and Ram Precision became the first shop in the country to buy a fine-hole machining option for an Edge2.

From The Ground Up [back to top]
Rudi Bauknecht Sr. came to the US from Germany nearly 50 years ago as a young but trained tool maker. He worked for a number of shops over the years as foreman and eventually decided to strike out on his own and start his own shop.

Ram Precision has now been around for more than 20 years. Over the years, Bauknecht, Sr. has built a shop that has specialized in injection molds and transfer molds for the electronics industry.

"What makes this mold so special is that the 6.4 x 6.6 inch mold has 7,850 holes in it, in addition to a carefully machined backside—a true precision job."

Today, Rudi and his son, Rudi Jr., run the shop with a total of 10 toolmakers and business is growing. After attending college to study engineering, Rudi Jr. worked for a couple of major companies in sales engineering roles but has returned home to Horsham, Pennsylvania, to help his father grow the shop in line with the needs of its 21st century customers.

Ram Precision has been working with a manufacturer of high-end electronics components for a number of years. Among the work the shop produced were transfer molds made of hardened tool steel for compression die manufacturing of ceramic capacitors.

These required special machine processing.

Micromachining [back to top]
The shop has been producing two different sizes of molds for this customer. The smaller is 4.5 x 5 inch and has more than 3,600 fine holes in it. The larger of the two molds, as earlier noted, is 6.4 x 6.6 inch and has 7,850 holes.

With hole diameters of 0.012 inches and tolerances of +/- 0.0005 inches, these molds require a precision that many shops today aren't equipped to provide. In fact, until recently, Ram had to send out each mold to a fine-hole shop for this work.

But, when this same customer came to the shop with an order for 15 molds in a 10-week period, both Rudis knew it was time to invest in the technology and bring it in-house, or risk losing the order. That customer is on pace to place an order of this size every six to eight months, so the investment in Makino will quickly be returned for Ram Precision.

The process transport alone on these molds, moving them from shop to shop, used to take nearly two weeks time within the manufacturing cycle. With the Edge2, Ram Precision is able to do all the fine-hole machining in house, and that two-week transfer time has been eliminated from the process.

Reducing Costs [back to top]
Another key advantage to bringing the fine-hole work in house is the reduction in cost. Although the Edge2 was a significant investment for such a small shop, the Bauknechts plan to have it pay for itself quickly.

By machining the holes themselves, Ram Precision has been able to reduce its actual fixed cost of each mold by 60 percent. This has decreased the overall cost to build each mold by 27 percent.

Time savings has also been tremendous by bringing small-hole production in house. On the larger mold, delivery time has gone from nearly three weeks to about three and a half days, a nearly 80 percent reduction. On the small mold, turnaround has gone from about two weeks to two days, a reduction of nearly 85 percent.

Rudi Jr. says a main goal of his is to bring more automation into the shop and run unattended. "We load up all 16 tools in our tool changers at the end of each day and let it run all night. I'll stop in sometimes in the evenings or weekends when no one else is here because I love to hear the sound of the machines cutting."

Reducing Scrap/Enhancing Performance [back to top]
Rudi Sr. says that something he is impressed with is the fact that even if there is a problem with an electrode, the whole workpiece won't be destroyed. "Before you might have a pipe get bent and then cut the hole crooked.

"With the automation of the Makino and the built-in software, it detects this and moves to another tool if there is a problem with the electrode. So, we don't have to worry about it destroying our entire mold."

The fine-hole electrodes that Ram Precision is using for this part are hollow copper pipes that allow coolant to run through them. Each pipe electrode is 0.0018 inches in diameter, with an inside diameter of 0.00472 inches—or about the diameter of a human hair.

Ram Precision is averaging about 50 holes per wire before having to change tools, and is always looking for new applications to use the Edge2 machine to its maximum capability of cutting holes as small as 0.0004 inches in diameter. One area that Rudi Jr. is exploring is to expand into micromanufacturing for medical industry products.

The company is also running a variety of other equipment, including a Makino wire EDM machine, another Makino sinker, and three Makino vertical machining centers, in addition to five wet grinders and eight dry surface grinders. Adding the Edge2 not only gave the shop fine-hole abilities, but also added another sinker EDM to its equipment line up for additional work.

Production Parts Keep Them Busy [back to top]
One part that the shop is running full production on is an industrial blade for the same high-end electronics manufacturer. The blades range in size from 5 to 7 inches in length, 1.75 inches in height and 0.038 inches wide.

"Our customers used to lose time with our competitors mold products, and time is money in production. But with our mold parts, they fit and work every time, so now they are coming to us every time for the peace of mind."

These blades are used to cut sheets of polycarbonate materials used to make electronic parts. Because the sheets are often 300-400 layers thick, the blades must be extremely sharp and accurate, and must stay sharp for repeatability and to hold the specific tolerances of the cuts.

The blades are made of CPM-10, a very tough, powdered steel designed for exceptionally good wear resistance, toughness and strength in all tooling applications. With tolerances of +/- 0.001 inches, Ram has perfected its manufacturing of more than 12,000 of these blades every year using a variety of its Makino equipment on the floor.

Rudi Sr. says the Edge2 will also help them to increase production of the blades. He says that because the manufacturing of each blade requires a variety of processes, they have been challenged by their customer over the years to reduce price. In fact, the customer has gone to other shops that say they can do the blades for a fraction of the cost of Ram, but this has not proven true and they keep coming back.

Global Production [back to top]
Ram Precision continues to make molds for other injection molding and transfer application customers, including those internationally. One is a facility in Mexico that makes various molded production line parts, requiring complex molds with cavity bars, inserts, endcaps and top and bottom plunger blocks.

Rudi Jr. says this can cause some unique problems. "An operator at that plant can shut down the entire lines to replace parts if they do not fit exactly, until a part is replaced with one that does fit properly.

"Our customers used to lose time with our competitors' mold products, and time is money in production. But with our mold parts, they fit and work every time, so now they are coming to us every time for the peace of mind."

Rudi Jr. says that the Edge2 has allowed Ram Precision to produce more gross revenue and reduce labor costs by 33 percent. In a shop of just 10 toolmakers, that's a significant reduction in cost.

He also says that, in the near future, Ram will be adding another Makino vertical machining center to the shop floor. "We want to be as innovative as we can when we add a machine, so we are able to keep producing the same amount of work with our current employees and by fully integrating it into our shop floor and production.

"The automation that is inherent with the Makino machines will allow us to do this with no problems. It is simply a matter of time."

Micromachining time.

For more information on Ram Precision and the shop's micromachining capabilities, contact Rudi Bauknecht Jr. at 405 Caredean Drive, Horsham, PA 19044; phone: 215-674-0663; fax: 215-674-2970; or email:rudi@ramprecision.net. You can also visit the company's website at www.ramprecision.net.

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