Work envelope versus part envelope — sizing a job to a machining centre
"Will it fit on your machine?" is the first question on most machining enquiries, and the axis travels alone will not answer it.
Travels are not workspace
A vertical machining centre publishes X, Y and Z travels. Those describe how far the spindle can move relative to the table, not the largest part that can be machined. Between the two sit the workholding, the tool length, and the clearance the tool needs to reach every feature without the spindle nose or holder fouling the part or the fixture.
For the VC Ez 510 IP on the RAVIS floor, the travels are X 1,250 / Y 510 / Z 635 mm. A part approaching 1,250 mm in X leaves nothing for vices or clamps, and a deep pocket at the bottom of the Z travel needs a tool long enough to reach it without the holder entering the pocket.
The four numbers to check
1. Travels against the part's bounding box, plus workholding. Subtract the fixture height from Z before comparing. This is where most "it fits" answers turn out to be wrong.
2. Spindle taper and power. BT40 at 18.5/7.5 kW and 12,000 rpm describes both the tooling that can be held and the material removal rate that can be sustained. A small-diameter cutter at 12,000 rpm is a different capability from a face mill at high torque; a machine has to be read for the operation your part actually needs.
3. Tool capacity and change time. A 24-station ATC with a 2.2-second tool change is not a convenience figure. A part needing 20 tools either runs in one setup on a machine with the magazine capacity, or it runs in several setups — and every extra setup is another datum transfer and another opportunity to lose position.
4. Probing and through-spindle coolant. In-process probing sets and verifies datums without breaking the setup. Through-spindle coolant reaches the bottom of a deep pocket where flood coolant does not, which is what makes deep features practical rather than merely possible.
Rotary work
A fourth axis changes the question. A 202 mm NC rotary table with 60 arc-second indexing and 4 arc-second repeatability lets features on several faces be machined in one setup, which removes the datum-transfer error that multiple setups introduce. For a part with features referenced across faces, that is often more important than the raw travels.
Turning
The equivalent questions for turned work are maximum turning diameter and bar capacity. The Tsugami machines at RAVIS take Ø280 mm maximum with 65 mm bar, at 200–4,000 rpm. Bar capacity decides whether a job runs from bar or from billet, which changes both the price and the lead time.
Send the model, not the dimensions
The fastest way to get an accurate answer is a 3D model — STEP or IGES — with the drawing. The bounding box, feature depths and tool-access angles are all readable from it in minutes. Send a drawing.
Machine specifications are from the RAVIS capability profile.