Mircona tooling delivers performance for Powerdrive transmission systems

Powerdrive Ltd, one of the UK’s leading specialists in power transmission systems, has developed a special relationship over the last 16 years with Advanced Carbide Tooling, suppliers of the Swedish Mircona range of parting-off and grooving tools.

As well as distributing selected standard ranges of clutches, brakes, gear-motors and related equipment manufactured by other companies, Powerdrive designs and manufactures its own gearboxes and complete drive packages in-house for an extensive range of applications from medical body scanners to ships, stair lifts to steel mills.

Components for this custom-built equipment are produced in its own factory under strict quality-control systems certified to ISO9002. In-house capabilities include CAD design facilities and CNC machining centres.

Powerdrive has used Mircona tooling for face-grooving and parting-off on an extensive range of components since investing in CNC machines in 1985. Some of the first Mircona tools supplied by ACT 16 years ago are still in use today.

‘The length of service achieved by Powerdrive shows the strength of the integral shank design which is a feature of Mircona tooling’, said Denis Houghton, ACT’s Managing Director.

‘Over the last 16 years, while this feature has remained, Mircona has continuously developed new geometries and grades to meet the changing needs of companies like Powerdrive’.

Standard Mircona tools from ACT are used to produce a wide variety of grooves in excess of 30mm deep in many different diameters. All face-grooving is performed with 4mm, 5mm or 6mm wide inserts with MTb chip-breaking geometry in grades that give a good balance of hardness and toughness on the various steel grades used.

‘Mircona tooling has been an important part of our metal-cutting capabilities and has definitely helped us to meet our requirements in terms of quality and productivity’, said works supervisor Bob Harris.

‘Mircona has been able to meet all our needs from its standard range, apart from one tool that needed a simple modification. This has made it quick and easy for us to get new tools when we want them’.