He has been a Fehlmann fan ever since he started milling. With the latest investment in a PICOMAX 56 TOP high-precision milling and drilling machine, the Fottner machinery now comprises three such machines. Since September, the machine has been located on the production premises of WF Fottner GmbH in Mössingen. Since the foundation of his mold and tool making company, the owner, Wolfgang Fottner, had been dreaming about working with a machine by Fehlmann. However, his seed capital at that time was too small so that he managed with used machines instead for the time being. Later on, new machines were purchased to live up to the increasing demands at that time - still, there was not enough money to buy "a real Fehlmann".
Then, in 1999, a new time and cost accounting era started for the mold and tool maker Fottner in Mössingen. Orders from other industrial sectors, such as medical engineering, forced Wolfgang Fottner to invest in ultra-high precision machines due to the increasingly stringent requirements on quality and accuracy. In concrete terms, we are talking about the production of measuring equipment.  The requested qualities and tolerances could no longer be achieved using the existing machines at that time. That was the reason for investing in a high-precision milling machine PICOMAX 60 by Fehlmann for the first time. To this day, Wolfgang Fottner is not quite able to comprehend what happenend then. „To start with, tools for medical engineering hardly compare to conventional injection molds. What you need is clean room know-how, the tools must be maintenance-free among other things and for the structural elements stainless steel is used. That means that different milling strategies must be implemented in case of steels containing chromium.  Also in qualitative terms, the requirements are far higher than those for conventional injection molds.  The results we were then able to achieve with this machine were excellent, which quickly got around. Numerous requests reached us from sectors for which we had not been producing before.  As a result, our product range changed completely way back then." As a consequence, Fottner ordered another Fehlmann, a PICOMAX 95, and - in September 2014 - a high-precision milling and drilling machine PICOMAX 56 TOP, including a fully digital Heidenhain control TNC620. A machine which not only matches his range of products, but also meets the working cycles and processes thanks to the manual operation via drilling lever and hand wheels.

Precise and versatile - highly inspiring
For Wolfgang Fottner, the PICOMAX 56 TOP was exactly the machine he had been looking for: a vertical 3-axis CNC center which can also be used manually via drilling lever and hand wheels and, thanks to its small footprint, fits well even  into his restricted space: „Milling, drilling and tapping tasks can, therefore, be carried out quickly, safely and efficiently without time-consuming programming work. I understand very well why these days many people are enthusiastic about this machine as it combines high precision, versatility, fast switching from manual operation to CNC mode hand in hand with extremely high user-friendliness.  In addition, the machine was not meant to be used for roughing in the first place - yet once again, we are surprised about what this machine can accomplish.“
Quite apart from that, the components which initiated the change back in 1999 are still being manufactured, also on the PICOMAX 60, with tolerances between 3 µm and 7 µm. Even if one would not exactly call the high-precision milling and drilling machine a classical production machine ... the product range having been produced on the large Fehlmann machines so far is now also being manufactured on the
PICOMAX 56 TOP.
This includes among other things free-form surfaces as well as hard and electrode milling. Moreover, the machine is especially interesting due to the fact that mold and tool making involves a lot of engraving. Also this machining task is now being shifted to the PICOMAX 56 TOP to take the burden off the two large machines.
Powerful and versatile, machining of complex parts in a simple and highly efficient manner ... Fehlmann has certainly not promised too much in this regard. At least this applies to Wolfgang Fottner, where Fehlmann is not first choice due to the excellent technology alone.  The experience with Fehlmann's service and fairness have additionally underlined this conviction over decades.

Tool and mold maker Fottner at a glance
The company was founded in Mössingen in 1987 and is mainly engaged in the manufacture of mostly complex injection molds up to 2.5 tons, of carbide casting tools and molds for ceramic injection molding. Customers mainly stem from industrial sectors like medical engineering or the sanitary, computer and electronic industry. It is especially in medical engineering that the company has gained itself a reputation with injection molds for cardiac valves, blood filters, vertebral implants as well as catheter technology.

By the way ...
Wolfgang Fottner: For the price of the PICOMAX 56 TOP, he could certainly have bought a standard vertical center, too. BUT ... that would not have been a "real Fehlmann" and would doubtlessly not have been as user-friendly or versatile. 

Interesting side note
The expanded product range complying with the requested qualities also led to the fact that higher yields were achieved by WF Fottner GmbH.

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