As the aerospace, automotive, and mold-and-die industries trend toward monolithic components and large structures, there is a growing need for large-travel machining centers. To accommodate large-volume machining, Haas Automation, Inc., has expanded the capacity of its rugged EC-1600 horizontal machining center with an additional 10 inches of Y-axis travel.

The latest generation Haas EC-1600 HMC features a generous 64" x 50" x 32" work cube - 10 more inches of Y-axis travel than before - as well as a 64" x 32" T-slot table and a powerful 6000-rpm, geared-head, 50-taper spindle. The fully enclosed machine includes multiple chip augers to evacuate chips, and a flood coolant system with 95-gallon capacity.

The EC-1600's massive cast-iron construction increases rigidity and damps vibration, and the standard T-slot table supports parts weighing up to 10,000 lb. The 50-taper geared-head spindle is powered by a 30 hp vector drive system, providing 450 ft-lb of torque for heavy cutting. A 30+1 side-mount tool changer is standard, as well as a color LCD remote jog handle, rigid tapping, 1 MB of program memory, a 15" color LCD monitor, and a USB port.

For machining all four sides of a workpiece in a single setup, an optional 5-degree indexing table is available. The indexer uses a face-gear coupler design that provides superior accuracy and extreme rigidity for off-center milling and drilling/tapping operations. With a 30" platter diameter and 10,000 lb weight capacity, the indexer easily positions very large parts to nearly any angle for machining. A full 4th-axis platter is also available for high-speed contouring and fully interpolated motion.

For high-speed machining operations, an optional 10,000-rpm 50-taper spindle (30 hp, geared-head) is available for the EC-1600. Other high-productivity options include high-speed machining software with full look-ahead, high-pressure through-spindle coolant systems, a programmable coolant nozzle, linear scales, Haas Intuitive Probing System (tool and work offset), Ethernet connectivity, and more.