Building on proven Technology

The Rover A itself has been around for a while. Its proven frame can be configured for nesting operations on flat tables or for any shape of material in a pod-and-rail specification. There are many different operations for making windows, doors and stairs. And while a pod-and-rail-equipped Rover A handles complex shapes with ease, producers who needed even more tooling or more flexibility often had to upgrade to the more expensive and much larger Rover B to get the functionality they wanted. This is where the new Plus version of the Rover A comes in, a twin-head machine that is not as big or as expensive as a Rover B, but has space for 83 tools on board and offers some very clever technologies that are said to offer users up to 24 percent more productivity than a Rover A.

Michael Clack, Technical Applications Manager for CNC and Drilling at Biesse UK, explains: “The Rover A Plus differs from the Rover A in that it can be equipped with two individual heads. However, to keep the price down, the second head is equipped with so-called multifunctional units - for example, a special unit for vertical milling operations, a unit for horizontal machining, a blade or a drilling head. Whenever a tool change is required on the main head, we insert an operation with the multifunctional unit into the program, eliminating the tool change time. Depending on the machining style or materials you are using, a Rover A Plus saves time, reduces the number of tool changes required and the number of tools needed in the machine.”

An intelligent Tool cChanger pushes the Pace

A standard Rover A can hold a maximum of 45 tools in different tool changers. With the Rover A Plus, Biesse has increased this number to 83, as mentioned above. However, the ability to hold more tools comes with another problem: if the machine has to travel further distances to find the right tools, this takes longer. To solve this problem, Biesse has added a function called Toologic to the machine. With Toologic, it recognizes the program that will be executed next and moves all the required tools to the high-speed tool changer that travels with the machine. The program is automatically optimized without the operator having to intervene. It checks the required programs and goes through the list in real time, listing the required tools and positioning them based on how often they are needed.

Various sSystems ensure Comfort, Safety and Performance

The Rover A Plus uses the same pod and rail systems as the Rover A and there is a choice of ATS (Advanced Table-Setting System) with fast manual positioning of the clamping systems; SA (Set-Up Assistance), which includes linear sensors in the work table and an anti-collision function; EPS (Electronic Positioning System) for automatic positioning; FPS (Feedback Positioning System) with self-learning function for manually selected positions of vacuum modules and clamps; and XPS (Extreme Positioning System), which has a motor on each worktable and slide that enables simultaneous automatic positioning of all locking systems in 16 fully independent locking areas. “It is possible to operate two separate sections of the machine at the same time,” explains Michael Clack. Last but not least, Biesse has added an auto-start function to the Rover A Plus, which saves the operation a button press, as well as a time-saving function called Dynamic Parking.