Machining A Brighter Future

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TRAXXION
Where the Rubber Meets the Road
Mark Junge, owner of Vesrah Suzuki, a successful AMA Pro Road Racing team and top-performer that uses Traxxion products.
Traxxion Dynamics Shifts into High Gear with
Complex Machinery and ESPRIT CAM
By Stacey Wiebe
Appearances have a way of being deceptive.
Consider motorcycles and something that should be their
polar opposite — like, say, saxophones.
At first glance, the two have almost nothing in common,
aside from the “sexy” factor. Plenty of people consider
motorcycles the sexiest machines on the road, and
saxophones one of the sexiest instruments on stage.
Another common factor shared by motorcycles and
saxophones is that both are extremely complex mechanisms
that require sophisticated machinery and processes to bring
them to life and make them “sing.”
It’s also worth noting that the two share common ground
in Traxxion Dynamics and its owner, Max McAllister.
McAllister happens to have been a national championship
winning motorcycle road racer, and is also an avid
professional saxophonist.
With a shop full of CNC machinery at his disposal, it should
be no surprise that his company manufactures both worldclass motorcycle suspension components and world-class
saxophone mouthpieces.
Since 1998, Traxxion Dynamics has been in the business
of manufacturing high-tech motorcycle components and
performing upgrades on motorcycle suspension components
for gran prix, road racing, sport riding, cruising, touring and
all types of street-going motorcycles.
“We strive to provide the optimum suspension system
available to each customer within his or her budget,”
McAllister says, adding that Traxxion offers everything from
complete suspension packages to services as simple as a seal
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replacement. “We do whatever we can to see
that our customers get around the track faster
than before, or down their favorite back road
safer and more comfortably.”
Considered a “side product” by McAllister,
the saxophone mouthpieces began being
manufactured at Traxxion after his musical
passion “connected me to a mouthpiece
designer who needed precise, repeatable
machining to make flawless mouthpieces.
Dickens poses with an assortment of Traxxion saxophone mouthpieces
in aluminum, stainless steel, delrin and brass.
To get the job done, the Woodstock, Georgia,
based company uses Haas vertical milling
and turning machines exclusively, paired with
ESPRIT® computer-aided-manufacturing (CAM) software
by DP Technology Corp.
Traxxion, which employs 14, uses three vertical machining
centers, two 5-axis and one 4-axis; and three lathes, including
two that are dual-spindled, live-tooled and bar-fed, and can
be run lights-out.
Traxxion primarily uses aluminum and stainless steel, in
addition to brass, delrin, and other plastics, to make its
complex range of motorcycle components and mouthpieces.
When all is said and done, the range of part numbers it turns
out ranges in the hundreds.
“We use the mills to manufacture billet motorcycle triple
clamps, mainly for the Honda GL1800 Goldwing in both
two-wheel and raked trike versions,” McAllister says. “We
also use them to make dozens of components related to
our suspension parts, and also quite a bit for secondary
operations on our turned parts that the lathes cannot
complete.”
They also use the shop’s 5-axis mills to machine the complex
surfaces and intricate inner chambers of the saxophone
mouthpieces.
In 2007, Traxxion purchased ESPRIT to take control of the
TRAXXION
“For the last hundred years, mouthpieces
have started as a molded or machined blank,
and are then finished one at a time, by an
expert craftsman. As a result, no two were the
exactly the same. That industry has turned to
CNC machining as a result.”
shop’s demanding range of programming needs. Though the
company had been using CAM software, its previous package
was not able to handle dual-spindle machining.
“I needed to find software capable of running 5-axis mills
and dual-spindled lathes,” McAllister says. “It seems like
‘everybody’ has great software for mills and lathes, but throw
in two spindles or live tools and then the options are quickly
narrowed to a few.”
Chief Technical Officer Anthony Dickens has used ESPRIT
since the software’s purchase date. According to Dickens,
ESPRIT has been a significant time-saver for the company
in part because of its ability to apply saved best-practice
methods.
“Using existing tool lists and the ability to copy and paste
existing features onto new part profiles are the most timesaving items,” he says. “Simply applying previously created
features to newly imported solid models makes life so easy
for the solid modeler in me. Also, the multi-selection of solids
in FreeForm milling allows me to quickly build solid model
boundaries in SolidWorks®, which is my forte for modeling
packages.”
“After a clean virtual run, we use the detailed tooling reports that
ESPRIT generates to help the machinists get the setup just right,
and the net result is first-run parts with no crashes every time.
That’s money in the bank.” -- Max McAllister, Traxxion Dynamics
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The combination of the strength of the
ESPRIT postprocessor and interoperability
between ESPRIT and computer-aided-design
(CAD) software have been major pluses when
it comes to saving time.
McAllister admits, “I was extremely
demanding of DP during the creation of our
post processors. I am the type of guy who
demands perfection. Their customer support
and engineers stepped up and delivered.”
CNC Machinist Stan Chadwick and Dickens discuss the machining details
on a new model of saxophone mouthpiece machined from brass.
Chadwick performs all set-up and dry-run operations for new designs
and relays problems to Dickens for adjustment within ESPRIT.
“Our most significant time savings comes
in the move from a CAD solid model and
the first completed part,” McAllister says.
“Once you have a finely tuned ESPRIT post
processor for your particular machine tool,
machining the first article can happen in a fraction of the
time.”
The manufacturing of high tolerance precision hydraulic
damping units at Traxxion has undergone dramatic change
since the implementation of ESPRIT. Most of the parts are
generated via lathe and concentricity is critical.
“Having humans handle the parts in multiple operations
introduces massive potential for error, so having lathes that
can ‘hand off ’ the part to a sub-spindle for completion is a
must for us,” McAllister says. “Programming the live tooling
and sub-spindle was where ESPRIT really made a difference
for us.”
McAllister’s machining philosophy at Traxxion is as simple as
they come: “Don’t make bad parts.”
“That sounds obvious and patently silly,” he says, “but when
you own a machine shop you learn quickly just how easy it
is for highly skilled, attentive and caring machinists to make
giant piles of junk parts that cost the company tons of money
that we cannot afford to lose. Due to the complexity of our
parts and the tremendous number of details on each part that
can move in and out of tolerance, it’s very easy to make bad
parts. We are constantly looking for ways to avoid making
bad parts.”
Similarly, one word that sends a chill down the spine of any
shop owner is “crash.” Machine crashes can have devastating
consequences, including lengthy downtime, high repair bills
and, worst of all, potential injury to the machinist.
“We use the ESPRIT ‘virtual dry run’ feature constantly,”
TRAXXION
The inability to translate complex solid
models into real-world machined parts is the
“place where bad parts are born,” McAllister
says. “ESPRIT helps us eliminate that area of
woe.”
McAllister says. “Having your machines and tooling solid
modeled takes time and costs money, but after that one time
up-front investment, creating toolpaths and doing virtual
dry runs of parts eliminates all of the wasted time that the
machinist spends trying to ‘force’ a program to work at the
machine, or worse, experience a crash. I mean, really: Do
you want to crash your machine on your computer, or in your
shop?”
“After a clean virtual run, we use the detailed tooling reports
that ESPRIT generates to help the machinists get the setup
just right, and the net result is first-run parts with no crashes
every time. That’s money in the bank.”
Prior to having in-house machinery and sophisticated
software, there was a time when Traxxion struggled in vain to
produce their parts. The high-tech motorcycle component
maker could not find reliable manufacturers for its parts.
“I was on the verge of closing my business because sourcing
high-tolerance parts and having them delivered on time
proved to be virtually impossible,” McAllister says. “I met
with dozens of shop owners who all claimed they were
‘dying’ to find a customer like me.”
At one time, McAllister had $100,000 in purchase orders he
required over the course of 180 days and the job shops he
approached “would leave with the prints and I wouldn’t even
get a quote.”
The rare few who did attempt to make one or two of
Traxxion’s parts would promise delivery dates and then
miss the scheduled delivery “not by just a day or two,
but sometimes by a month or two,” he says. “I was sick of
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being last in line at someone else’s machine
shop. Against the advice of everyone I
knew, I bought my first lathe and hired a
programmer.” That decision proved to be
pivotal for McAllister’s company.
“I don’t stand in anyone’s line anymore.
Traxxion Dynamics is Customer No. 1 in my
shop, and that has transformed us. ”
A Haas VF-3 VMC, fitted with a Haas TR210 rotary trunion and set up to
run full 5-axis, cuts a complex chamber in the interior of a 303 stainless
steel saxophone mouthpiece.
“The machines set us free,” McAllister says.
Fast forward a few years and the company now has even
greater freedom. The pairing of machine with software that
can maximize its potential leads to what any shop owner
wants: more profit.
a machine shop successful: quality machinery, skilled
machinists, skilled CAD designers and skilled CAM
programmers. The link between the solid model and the
machinery is what we didn’t have. ESPRIT has filled that
void and exceeded our expectations.” g
After pausing for a moment to reflect on his success,
McAllister added, “It takes a lot of elements to make
ON THE WEB:
www.traxxion.com
TRAXXION
Having failed for five years to manufacture
his dream of a revolutionary “drop in” fork
cartridge, it took just six months after his
first machine tool purchase for McAllister to
walk into the Motorcycle Dealer Expo (the
biggest annual motorcycle trade show) with
his completed product in hand. He proudly
introduced it to the motorcycling world in
2005 and his company has been advancing
ever since.
McAllister on Traxxion’s Honda GL1800 Goldwing,
which is fitted with the company’s suspension upgrade
products. The bike allows customers to see the
difference made by the products prior to investing.
“I joke that this bike is our top salesman, but it’s
true,” McAllister says. “We can tell people how big the
improvement is, but nothing beats a test drive.”
DP Technology Corp.
1150 Avenida Acaso
Camarillo, CA 93012 USA
Phone: 1 800 627-8479
Outside the US: + 1 805 388-6000
Email: [email protected]
ESPRIT is a registered trademark of DP Technology Corp.
©2011 DP Technology Corp. All rights reserved.
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