Introduction to Electric Spindle

The core functional components of CNC machine tools

Electric spindle is one of the three high-tech components of CNC machine tools, including high-speed electric spindle, CNC system, and feed drive. With more and more mechanical equipment developing towards high speed, high precision, high efficiency, and high intelligence, electric spindles have become one of the core functional components suitable for high-performance CNC machine tools. In some fields, replacing traditional mechanical spindles with electric spindles is the overall trend of machine tool industry development.

Characteristics and advantages

According to the driving method of the spindle, machine tool spindles can be divided into two categories: mechanical spindles and electric spindles. Electric spindles eliminate the transmission links of belts, gears, or couplings, achieving "zero transmission" of the machine tool spindle system, which is a major change in the transmission system of CNC machine tools.

At present, electric spindles have already occupied the main share of the spindle market in developed countries, while the utilization rate of spindles in the domestic machine tool industry is exactly the opposite, with electric spindles accounting for less than 30% of the market share.

classification

According to their usage classification, electric spindles are mainly divided into six categories: electric spindles for machining centers, electric spindles for CNC lathes, electric spindles for grinding, electric spindles for drilling, electric spindles for engraving and milling, and specialized electric spindles.

Industrial Chain

The electric spindle is the core functional component of CNC machine tools, and the development of the electric spindle industry complements the development of downstream machine tool industries.

Analysis of the Current Status of the Global Electric Spindle Market

According to the China Information Center website, the global production of electric spindles was 881000 units in 2013, and increased to 955000 units in 2014, a year-on-year increase of 8.4%.

From a regional perspective, in 2014, China's electric spindle market accounted for 27% of the global market, ranking first in the world.

Analysis of the Chinese Electric Spindle Market

The increase in CNC rate of machine tools drives market demand

The downstream industries of electric spindles, whether it is PCB processing equipment or glass carving and milling machines, are essentially CNC machine tools. Therefore, the development of the electric spindle market is closely related to the machine tool industry.

After years of rapid development, China's machine tool industry has risen from 21.09 million US dollars in 2000 to 238 million US dollars in 2014, ranking first in the world in terms of industrial scale.

With the deepening of industrial upgrading and structural adjustment in China's machine tool industry, the CNC rate of the industry has significantly increased.

At present, the CNC rate of the machine tool industry in developed industrial countries is generally 60-70%, and the CNC rate of China's machine tool industry is expected to further increase.

The CNC machine tool market maintains high-speed growth

At present, the production of CNC machine tools in China continues to grow rapidly, with a compound annual growth rate of 37.4%. In 2014, the output of China's CNC machine tool industry was 245500 units.

At present, the CNC machine tool market in China has exceeded a scale of 100 billion yuan, of which the machine tool electrical market is nearly 40 billion yuan. As the main component of the machine tool electrical field, the spindle system has unlimited market space.

In 2013, the annual demand for various types of electric spindles in China's machine tool industry was about 30000 units (reaching 70000 units in 2011), of which only about 3000 electric spindles were used in CNC machine tools (reaching nearly 6000 units in 2011). Assuming that the penetration rate of electric spindles in CNC machine tools will transition from 40% to 60% in the future, the corresponding market capacity of electric spindles in the next five years will reach 9.4-15.6 billion yuan.

The trend of localization is accelerating

Since 2012, the number of imported CNC machine tools in China has steadily decreased. Compared with the gradual decline in the number of imported machine tools, the production of domestically produced high-end machine tools is rapidly increasing, and China is gradually getting rid of its dependence on imported machine tools.

With the acceleration of the localization process of CNC machine tools in China, the electric spindle industry has developed rapidly. Some domestic manufacturers have launched highly competitive products with increasingly improved research and development capabilities and manufacturing technologies, gradually enhancing their competitiveness in the domestic market.

The application trend of downstream machine tools

The main downstream application industry of electric spindles is the CNC airport industry. In the current application of CNC machine tools, the growth rate of the consumer electronics market is relatively significant.

Curved glass processing equipment is highly respected

According to LG's forecast, curved smartphones will account for about 12% of the smartphone market in 2015. By 2018, its market share is expected to reach 40%, with demand exceeding 573 million units and a compound annual growth rate of over 50%. The market demand will grow rapidly. The rapid development of curved smartphones has also driven the market demand for curved glass processing equipment.

Curved glass processing technology

The process flow of curved glass cover plate is basically the same as that of traditional 2D glass cover plate, but the forming process is more complex. There are three processes for preparing curved glass cover plates.

Carving machines play an important role

Carving machines play an important role in curved glass processing. As the three high-tech electric spindles of carving machines, they also have new opportunities in the market.

The three high technologies of carving machines: CNC system, high-speed electric spindle, and feed drive.