We are the pioneers in the design & manufacture of Metering & Dosing pumps in India & are located in Mumbai. Our company was established in 1965. More details of our products & abilities are available on our parent website www.shapotools.com In 2004 we invested in our first set of CNC machines, a Turning machine & a VMC. Each of our tailor made pumps require close to a hundred individual components to be manufactured. We have a large variety of pump models, and the mammoth task of writing & implementing the part programs for each of these components was entrusted to me. Being a Mechanical Engineer by qualification, and an Indian software programmer at heart, I took to task laid out before me & in a span of 4 years, we now processing almost all our components on these machines. I have always avoided using the commonly available CAM tools & chosen to write macro based programs myself.

"Diaphragm Metering Pumps manufactured by Shapotools"

This was partly driven by the need to keep the program length as short as possible as we have low cost machines with basic Siemens 802D controllers that have memory limitation & slow serial port connectivity. Furthermore, the components we manufacture are quite straight forward, unlike the needs of the die / mould industry, and in such cases, we find our specific macro programs more flexible & efficient as compared to generalized CAM software tools.

Once all the standard components were made, we started to consider making components with odd shaped profiles & hence invested in a fourth axis for our VMC. Each of the pumps we make requires a set of worm reduction gears. The center distance & ratio varies depending on the pump model, and we stock over 50 varieties of gear sets. Due to pressure from the gear suppliers towards price hikes, and interchangeability issues arising between different gear manufacturers, we had no choice but to explore the possibility of making the gear sets in house too. I am happy to say that we have recovered the investment of the fourth axis within a year, only based on gear production!

I now wish to help others utilize their CNC machines in a similar manner, and also recover the time invested in creating the tools required to make this possible.