Spindle Running Time

The spindle running time is the opera­ting time of the work spindle in the machine tool. The running time indi­ca­tes how many hours the spindle has turned during machi­ning, simi­lar to the mileage of a car. This deter­mi­nes the value of the spindle when it is sold.

The main­ten­ance inter­vals are based on the running time, since, in contrast to the duty cycle, they indi­cate the actual load period of the spindle. In modern machi­nes, the running time is auto­ma­ti­cally captu­red and recor­ded for evalua­tion. In produc­tion engi­nee­ring, the running time can be set in compa­ri­son to the duty cycle in order to describe the produc­tivity of the machine. Thus, with a 200h opera­ting time, a running time of 100h is rather unpro­duc­tive compa­red to a running time of 165h. In the first case, this results in an average spindle running time of 50%, in the second case an average running time of 82.5%. Nowa­days, spindle running times of up to 90% of the opera­ting times are possi­ble in modern machi­nes. An impro­ve­ment of the spindle running time compa­red to the opera­ting time can be achie­ved by auto­ma­tic tool and work­piece chan­ges as oppo­sed to manual chan­ges. This shor­tens the setup time. Programming is also very important for nume­ri­cally control­led machi­nes. Exter­nal programming shor­tens the programming time at the machine which can be redu­ced to the approach of refe­rence points. This increa­ses the over­all effi­ci­ency of the machine tool.

Source: Spin­del­l­auf­zeit, 31 March 2007, https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spindellaufzeit, 19 May 2008