DT Solutions are a multi disciplined design and product development company offering high quality services in CNC routing, furniture making, sign writing, play and educational equipment along with bespoke plastics machining.

As their company name suggests, DT are a solutions provider across a broad range of industries dealing with a broad range of products. Hence, when it came time to consider purchasing an additional CNC router, they were quite specific with their requirement for a machine that would be adaptable and flexible to allow integration into their diverse range of machining requirements.

Having visited our stand at W18 and seeing the AES Extreme on display, initially asked for additional training to assist with their somewhat diverse range of products which was carried out by our software applications engineer. This in turn led to a visit to our works to have a demonstration on the AES Extreme set up in our showroom.

It became clear that some of their existing CNC machines were somewhat restrictive either due to their age or simply not flexible enough to cope with the demands of DT. Using Alphacam as their preferred CAD CAM, DT wanted to ability to run part programs on the machine or be able to pause a program, park the router, inspect the product then resume at will. They also wanted the ability to use the Z level from either the top of the material or from the base depending upon the program to be run.

A second visit was arranged where DT brought up their own tooling and material along with programs which were cut using the demonstration machine and a final specification was confirmed to suit their requirements.

The machine supplied was the flagship AES Raptor Ultra which is a heavy duty highly productive machine having a linear speed of 80 m/min. The machine was fitted with an upgraded 12Kw router head, a 12 position rotary tool changer mounted on the Y axis for rapid tool changing, a HSD drill box to allow both face and end drilling as well as grooving in the X direction with preparation to the vacuum for pods to be fitted at a later date if required.

The machine was also equipped with the Osai open control showing the latest AES HMI which gives a visual representation of the program being run along with the ability to adjust any part of the program on the machine.

This machine was also fitted with the new 'Vacuboost' intelligent vacuum system. This system has 2 x 250 m3 vacuum pumps, one works across the whole bed but the second gives smart vacuuming technology and follows the router head giving the full 250m3 power to the zone where the router is working. AES say this gives around 10 times the holding power compared to a traditional vacuum. Of course safety fences and safety lights were also supplied and fitted (these are required by HSE which states any operator must not have any access to the moving parts of a machine).