Kitamura Bridgecenter-8G #40

The Kitamura Bridgecenter-8G #40 stretches X travel to 2,032 mm (80 in) over a 900 x 2,500 mm (35.4 x 98.4 in) table and pairs that length with a 20 to 20,000 rpm No. 40 taper spindle. It suits long, fairly slender work: rails, beams, extrusions, long plates, or a row of fixtures running down the table.

Length is what you are buying here. Y travel, at 1,095 mm (43.1 in), and Z travel, at 710 mm (28 in), match the Bridgecenter-6G #40, which stops at 1,530 mm (60.2 in) of X on a 900 x 1,800 mm (35.4 x 70.9 in) table. Table load on the longer machine is 3,500 kg (7,700 lb). A long table is seldom loaded evenly, so look at where the weight of a fixture actually sits and not only at the total.

The spindle is four-step gear driven on an NST No. 40 taper, with HSK-A63 optional. That gives a slow range for drilling and tapping and a 20,000 rpm top end for finishing light alloys. No power or torque figure is published in the table. The magazine holds 40 tools, and 60 and 80 tool magazines are options.

Rapids are 24 m/min (945 ipm). Over 2,032 mm of X a move from one end to the other takes several seconds, so on long parts it pays to order operations to limit end-to-end travel. Accuracy is listed as ±0.002 mm (±0.000079 in) over the full stroke with ±0.001 mm (±0.000039 in) repeatability, a tight figure for an axis this long. Supply is 35 kVA at 200 V AC, three-phase. The Bridgecenter-10G and Bridgecenter-12G go further in X, to 2,540 mm (100 in) and 3,050 mm (120.1 in), and both are listed with a No. 50 taper spindle at 35 to 12,000 rpm.