DATRON : HIGH SPEED MACHINING FOR ELECTRONICS

But what our customers are less aware of is that DATRON has its roots in the electronics industry and that this explains the special features of our machines that make them so different from others.

DATRON AG, which celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2019, was originally a manufacturer of components and measuring devices for electronics, in particular, measuring systems used for crash tests in the automotive industry.

A manufacturer of electronic parts, before being a manufacturer of machines

Faced with various machining needs that you all know: machining of boxes in the mass, heat sinks, engraving of front panels, connectors, supports and various tools, PCB, wave frames... we found it difficult to find machines on the market that met all our needs.

Indeed, it is difficult to find equipment that meets such antagonistic technical constraints, ranging from the roughing of a case in a block of aluminum to the machining of FR4 with dust management, through the machining of heat-sensitive plastics or the perfect engraving of front panels...

Located near Darmstadt, DATRON has been collaborating with the University of Darmstadt since the early 1980s, in particular with the Institute for Production Technology and Machine Tools (PTW), which specializes in high-speed machining (HSM), and the team has become increasingly passionate about this technology.

The evolution of spindles offering more rotation, but also of NC allowing a perfect management of more complex toolpaths and high dynamics, appeared to us as favourable to the development of a new generation of machining centers.
In the 1980s, one of our engineers said to himself: "I'm fed up with these traditional machines, I'm going to invent something else that will meet all our needs"...

The story of a passion for innovation

A new adventure begins for the family business.
The enthusiasts are enthusiastic, the ideas follow each other with a relentless logic:

• Many operations with small tool diameters, but also intensive roughing in soft materials, we need rotation...
• Vacuum table, vices, 4th axis everything has to be positioned and removed from the working air as quickly as possible, let's create an innovative removable clamping module system to change the application quickly.
• Beautiful HSC blanks but also engraving, impossible to consider a spindle with a follower nose, how to answer to everything? It's easy! Let's use a mechanical probe and develop a specific surface probing function with Z correction.
• For dusty composites, let's use suction... For heat-sensitive plastics, let's blow out cooled air...
• We need to lubricate metals without greasing the machine, which would be incompatible with composite dust, let's develop and patent a new air/ethanol lubrication solution.

In short, genius is sometimes passion in action, focused on precise needs and daring to start from a blank page!
The DATRON machines were born.

Once the Cartesian table was mastered, what could be easier than to develop another range by replacing the spindles with dosing / dispensing heads, patented by DATRON for insulators, seals, glues...

DATRON's gamble paid off, as the machines quickly won over the company's customers. Today, the company no longer manufactures components and measuring systems but only machines.

Versatile, modular, easy-to-use and highly productive machines; machines with a difference.

And if in 2016, with the release of its brand new control software DATRON next with touch and intuitive interface, DATRON creates again the event and makes high-end machining accessible to all, it is because in this family company of 280 employees we remain keen on innovation with 25% of the team dedicated to R&D...

Discover now the DATRON high speed machining centers available with the DATRON next interface here.