With WireDress® technology metal-bonded CBN and diamond grinding wheels can finally be dressed efficiently – quickly and precisely, directly in the machine. This means higher productivity and shorter auxiliary times.
Ceramic, tungsten carbide or polycrystalline diamond (PCD): Grinding these materials is very demanding, due to their extreme hardness. The grinding wheels needed contain diamond grit, which is usually embedded in a ceramic or resin bond. By comparison, grinding wheels with a sintered metal bond offer higher durability and enable long-term precision and more economic grinding processes. But so far their potential hasn’t been fully exploited with the conventional options for sharpening and profiling (dressing). Too slow and cumbersome, mechanical dressing tools wear very quickly, or the grinding wheel had to be removed and dressed externally. The result was average cutting ability, and the complexity of the feasible profiles remained very limited. This meant that despite the promising potential, many users chose not to use metal-bonded grinding wheels.
WireDress® dressed grinding wheel, complex thread profile for external grinding
Thanks to STUDER’s WireDress® dressing technology, this is changing. This technology can dress metal-bonded grinding wheels quickly, with high precision, directly in the machine. This gives a grinding wheel profiled with micron precision, with a very high cutting ability, and a high proportion of free-standing grains. The machine control also supports operators when dealing with highly complex profiles. Contour data can be imported, and dressing time-optimized programs for profiling and reprofiling are created automatically. A grinding wheel dressed in this way increases productivity by at least 30 percent in comparison to resin or ceramic bonds—depending on the workpiece—and in some cases even by 300 percent. Grinding operations can be set up extremely cost-effectively—roughing and finishing to target surface quality with just one wheel / grit is possible.
Another big advantage is that the grinding wheel can be dressed with the same peripheral speed as when grinding. This increases the achievable precision especially with asymmetrical wheel shapes, as any deflection of the wheel at high cutting speeds can be compensated.
WireDress® dressing unit
WireDress® Unlocks the Full Potential.
This is possible because of the special way in which the WireDress® technology works, using the wire erosion principle. The specially modified wire erosion method uses regular grinding oil as a dielectric and vaporizes tiny areas of the metal bond in the grinding wheel using precise electrical impulses. This machine-integrated dressing method developed by STUDER and its technology partners unleashes the full potential of metal-bonded CBN and diamond grinding wheels.
This type of grinding wheel allows higher dressing intervals, and the WireDress® technology reduces non-productive times, as the grinding wheel doesn’t need to be removed from the machine. Retooling errors are eliminated, and accuracy considerably increased by the machine-integrated dressing. As well as the more efficient principle of a grinding wheel dressed with WireDress®, the lower costs of a universal dressing tool (wire) for all profiles also ensures a more economical operation. The technology is available as a dresser option for the STUDER S22 and S41 cylindrical grinding machines.
WireDress® at a Glance
- Finest profiles in metal-bonded grinding wheels (CBN or diamond)
- Maximum cutting ability and maximized free-standing grains
- At least 30 percent higher grinding performance, and depending on the workpiece, even up to 300 percent is achievable
- Dressing directly in the grinding machine with shorter non-productive times
- Full control integration with intelligent optimization functions
- Higher precision in comparison to other dressing methods
- Higher dressing intervals
- Lower dressing costs
