What's the difference between a milling machine and a planer?
What's the difference between a milling machine and a planer?
Before distinguishing between a milling machine and a planer, we should first understand what a milling machine is and what a planer is.
What is a milling machine? What is a planer?
The milling machine is a machine tool for milling the workpiece with a milling cutter. It not only can milling plane, groove, gear, thread and spline shaft, but also can process more complex profile, which has been widely used in mechanical manufacturing and repair departments. The earliest milling machine was a horizontal milling machine created by American e. Whitney in 1818. In 1862 American J.R. brown created the first universal milling machine. The planomiller appeared around 1884. Then we are familiar with the semi-automatic milling machine, CNC milling machine.
Common milling machine can be divided into lifting table milling machine, planar milling machine, single column milling machine, tool milling machine, etc. According to the structure can be divided into desktop milling machine, cantilever milling machine, plane milling machine, copying milling machine. When the milling machine is working, the workpiece is installed on the working table or the accessory of dividing head. The rotation of the milling cutter is the main movement, and the feeding motion of the working table or milling head is complementary, so the workpiece can obtain the required machining surface. The productivity of the milling machine is higher because of the discontinuous cutting of multiple edges. Simply put, a milling machine allows the milling, drilling, and boring of the workpiece.
Planer is a linear motion machine that USES a planer to plane, groove or form surface of workpiece. It achieves the goal of planing the workpiece surface through the linear reciprocating motion between the cutter and the workpiece. In the planer, horizontal plane, vertical plane, inclined plane, curved surface, step surface, dovetail workpiece, T groove, V groove can be planed, holes, gears and rack, etc., which has higher efficiency in machining narrow and long surfaces.
The common planer in the processing has the shaper, the door planer, the slotting machine (vertical planer) and so on. Due to its simple structure, easy adjustment and operation, low price and good versatility, it is widely used in small batch production.
Large contrast between milling machine and planer
After figuring out the performance and characteristics of the two machine tools, let's make a comparison to see what's the difference between a milling machine and a planer.
1. Different tools are used
Using a milling cutter, the machine can milling plane, groove, gear, thread and spline shaft as well as more complex profile.
The linear motion of the workpiece plane, groove or formed surface is planed when the planer works with the planer. It should be noted that large planer with milling head and grinding head components can make the workpiece after one installation to finish planing, milling and grinding.
2. Different motion modes of cutter
The milling cutter of the milling machine usually takes the rotation motion as the main motion, and the movement of the workpiece and the milling cutter is the feed motion.
The planer blade of the planer is mainly affected by linear motion
3. Different processing range
Due to its cutting characteristics, the milling machine has a wider range of processing. In addition to the planar and groove machining, the milling machine can also process gear teeth, threads and spline shafts as well as more complex profile.
The machining of planer is single, which is suitable for the machining of narrow and long surface and small tool.
4. Different machining efficiency and accuracy
The comprehensive processing efficiency of milling machine is higher and the precision is better, which is suitable for mass production. Machining efficiency of planer is low, precision is poor, and it is suitable for small batch machining. It should be noted that the planer has more advantages when machining the narrow and long surface.
Generally speaking, the milling machine is more widely used and excellent in processing, but the planer has more advantages in the machining of narrow and long surface, and the planer has a lower price, and the cost of cutting tools is relatively low. It is more widely used in the single-piece, small-batch production and machine repair workshops. Two kinds of machine tools each have the advantage, the enterprise may according to own processing demand flexible choice. This is the end of today's reader's question and answer session.