OConnor Product Excellence

Here is a short film that describes our manufacturing process for the mainbody housing of the OConnor 2575 pan and tilt head.

In our products, we use some of the most pacing mechanical manufacturing technologies such as the latest advances MIM, to technologies such as investment casting, developed in ancient Egypt over 5000 years ago!

The mainbody is the main hub around which everything is built. It houses the fluid drag chambers and pan and tilt bearings, as well as, acting as the base for mounting the counterbalance mechanism.

The Video starts with the melting of the magnesium alloy ingots and the construction of the sand moulds from an array of patterns and core boxes. The cope and drag are assembled and the casting poured.

The casting is then extracted, runners and risers are cut off and the casting is fettled and heat treated for strength in preparation for machining.

The castings are then loaded into a high speed Horizontal NC Milling machine to be cut to its final tightly tolerance dimensions, being inspected carefully along the way!

The machined part is then carefully deburred before being sent off for coating, this coating stops the magnesium corroding and also provides a key for the hard epoxy paint.

Once painted the casting is ready for final assembly and testing.

If you want more detail on this or have any questions please go to our ‘Ask OConnor’ section.

Steve Turner MEng (Product Manager)