Panel benders, folding machines, and other alternatives for ...
Panel benders, folding machines, and other alternatives for ...
A press brake may have sufficient safeguarding, including light curtains on the sides and cameras or lasers detecting objects just below the punch tip. But all the safeguarding technology in the world cant make the press brake operators back feel better.
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Historically its been common to see two brake operators straining to lift a large panel as it whips up during the forming cycle. Working with thin panels, they take care to support the work to ensure gravitys effect on the portion of the workpiece whipping upward doesnt distort the resulting bend. They also take care to get out of the workpieces way. Being hit by a workpiece whipping up during the bending cycle isnt very pleasant. A press brake that is lifting a large unsupported workpiece during the forming cycle also can increase the forming tonnage required.
Fabricators usually tackle this problem in several ways. At the very least, the press brake has supports in the front that help operators position the workpiece against the backgauges. They also may have something other than a human lift to support the part as it arcs upward during the press brakes bending cycle. This could include some type of crane or hoist, the most common choice for thick plate.
For thin sheet, fabricators have options, including a sheet follower. The sheet follower does just what it says. Positioned in front of the press brake bed, the device supports and follows a large sheet as it whips upward during bending.
Another approach involves changing how bending occurs. Instead of both the short and long legs of the bend whipping upward as the punch descends into the V die, the long leg stays horizontal while the short leg bends upward or downward. For making edge flanges in large panels, this makes all the sense in the world.
Fabricators have several ways to accomplish this: with special tools on a press brake or a different machine altogether, such as a panel bender or folder. As with any technology, each machine and tooling choice has its limitations. But for the majority of sheet metal applications, fabricators have a plethora of options.
Horizontal Bending on the Press Brake
The press brake can use a range of special tools, but when it comes to horizontal bendingthat is, where the sheet in front of the tooling remains horizontal during the bending cycletwo categories of tools are available: wiping and rotary-style.
Wiping tools work as they sound: A punch essentially wipes the sheet against the die. Wiping could be described as a bottoming operation, and each die set is made for a specific material type, thickness, bend angle, and radius. As such, wiping requires significant tonnage, which is why you rarely see wiping operations for mild steel thicker than about 0.125 in. Most wiping tools are made to form 90-degree bends, but some custom wiping tools can be made to form workpieces to other angles.
Because the tool is designed for a specific material thickness, slight variations in material thickness can cause quality problems, said Greg Flaherty, design engineer and press brake specialist at Wilson Tool International®, White Bear Lake, Minn. The gap between the forming punch and stationary die is critical. If the material is a little thicker than what the gap is designed to handle, the wiping action tends to mark or gall the material. If the material is thinner than the gap, youll end up with an underbent angle. In traditional air bending, youd simply descend the punch a little farther to achieve the angle you need. But in a wiping situation, youre stuck with
He added that springback sometimes can be difficult to control. The wiping punch wraps the sheet metal around the die, but once the cycle completes and the pressure is released, the bend angle can relax slightly.
Some wiping dies can be made so they press slightly into the material at certain points, mitigating springback. But Flaherty cautioned that sometimes this isnt ideal. The punch pressing the material into the wiping die may mitigate springback, but it also coins the workpiece, which can mar it and cause material integrity problems.Some wiping dies can be made so they press slightly into the material at certain points, mitigating springback. But Flaherty cautioned that sometimes this isnt ideal. The punch pressing the material into the wiping die may mitigate springback, but it also coins the workpiece, which can mar it and cause material integrity problems.
Rotary-style horizontal bending tools can form edge flanges in a much more controlled manner, Flaherty said.
Rotary tools consist of a Pac-Man-shaped cam that sits in a saddle, basically a circular pocket in the tool. The operator slides the sheet to the back of the tool. As the press brake ram descends, the cam wraps the material around the die, which is called the anvil.
The anvil is recessed, so you can overbend a few degrees to account for springback, Flaherty said.
To form a flange down, the cam is part of the upper tool, which descends downward to form the bend over the anvil. To form a flange upward, the cam is part of the lower tool; in this case, the anvil descends toward the rotating cam.
You can also bend different angles by adjusting the stroke of the ram, Flaherty said, adding that a rotary tool can bend included angles anywhere between 75 and 135 degrees, while some tools can form open angles up to 145 degrees. Theyre usually used for material thats 0.25 in. and thinner, but Flaherty did say that custom tools sometimes can be designed to handle thicker stock. This is accomplished by building a larger cam, which gives the rotary tool a larger opening.
The rotary tool can account for variations in material thickness. If, say, the tool underbends, and the included angle ends up being slightly more open than it needs to be, the operator can adjust the ram position to add a few more degrees for overbending.
Horizontal bending tools allow for multiple-bend geometries like return flanges consisting of two or more bends. But these tools do have flange depth limitations. The tool size governs the flange depths you can achieve. Of course, as the tool size grows, so does the expense.
Horizontal bending large workpieces on a press brake still requires operators to lift and support the sheet in some way. Two or more workers may hold the sheet in place, or they may use a support table to position the large panel for bending.
Alternative technologies, though, take another approach to bending altogether, which in turn changes how operators handle the workpiecesas well as the number of operators (often just one) needed to handle large sheets.
Folding Machines
To form a workpiece on a folding machine, an operator (or automation) places a workpiece on a backgauge table, which has recessed rails with pop-up fingers, each individually controlled. The piece slides forward and is positioned under clamping beam tools that clamp the workpiece in place.
Backgauge tables are sometimes L-shaped, with the horizontal leg of the L behind the folding tools. When working with large panels, many folding machine operators prefer to work from behind the machine, and an L-shaped backgauge table allows them to support the work throughout the folding cycle.
The height of the clamping beam tools generally determines the height limit for a 90-degree flange in a four-sided box. If the workpiece has flanges on only one or two sides, folders have no limit on flange heights. The clamping beam tools are changed and rearranged to accommodate different bend lengths while avoiding collisions with previously formed flanges.
Once the machine has material clamped, a tool on a swinging beam contacts and folds the workpiece. The beam can swing to a position within 0.1 degree, resulting in an angle tolerance of plus or minus half a degree, said Bill Kennedy, vice president of RAS Systems LLC, Peachtree City, Ga. Standard tooling is very flexible, and there are no tool changes required to accommodate different material thicknesses.
Some machines offer a height-adjustable backgauging table, which can help operators run more kinds of partssay, to support a negative bend. You can drop down your backgauge table to gauge off of a negative bend, said Chandler Barden, national sales manager for CIDAN Machinery Americas, Peachtree City, Ga.
Folding machines also can form hems and other edge geometries. The operator slides the part onto the backgauge table, and the clamping beam tool descends to form the hem, be it flat, teardrop, or another shape.
Decades ago folding systems created only positive bends, like edge or return flanges around a box or panel, but modern folding systems can create both positive and negative bends. The folding beam does this by swinging upward and downward. To swing downward, it must pivot outward by the width of the folding tool. Say the beam tool is 0.6 in. wide. For the first upward bend, the top edge of the tool contacts the sheet to make the bend. To bend downward, the tools bottom edge must fold the material surface. This requires the beams pivot point to move 0.6 in.
Also, the folding beam itself is a powered axis and can be adjusted out as much as 5.9 in. to avoid any collisions with a previously bent flange, Kennedy said.
Thicker tools on the folding beam can accommodate thicker materials. Thinner tools can fold material only so thick, but these narrow tools also can access certain areas that thicker folding tools cant, like the back-to-back bends required for narrow offsets.
Automatic tool change on press brakes has been growing in popularity, and in recent years tool change automation has hit the folding machine market too. In these machines, robotic manipulators change and rearrange clamping beam tools for the job at hand, said David Prokop, executive vice president of MetalForming Inc., Peachtree City, Ga.
Alternatively, some folding systems change tooling automatically by rotating the upper beam. One side of the beam can have a conventional clamping beam solid tool, while the other side of the beam can have segmented clamping beam tooling. As Barden explained, An operator can do as many bends with the solid tool, and on the segmented side, he can have tools set up for panels of different widths and other parts.
Some folders incorporate automation that helps eliminate manual loading and manipulation of large blanks. This, of course, improves operator ergonomics, which is often the primary reason fabricators purchase a folder in the first place.
A lot has changed with folding technology to relieve the bottleneck in the forming department, Prokop said. Fully automated folding systems with auto tool change and part manipulation have hit the stage.
Panel Bending Options
In panel bending, the sheet is positioned below blank-holder tools, which descend and clamp the workpiece in place, with material protruding on the other side. The farther the metal protrudes beyond the toolingan area of the machine called the throatthe higher the resulting flange will be. The deeper the throat, the higher the flange.
With the sheet metal in place, the machines bending blades from above and below move to fold the metal. For most operations, the motion of the bending blade, not the shape of the tools, determines the final bend angle and radius. The segmented blank-holder tools automatically change out to match the required bend lengths. And like the folding machine, panel benders can form special shapes like hems, with the bending blades forming material past 90 degrees and the hold-down tools descending to form the final hem.
Panel bending has evolved from being one type of machine to a technology incorporated into a variety of systems, from the manually fed to the completely automated.
Traditional panel benders use part manipulators that manipulate a part throughout the bending cycle. In this case, an operator inserts the sheet against locating devices, initiates a cycle, and the manipulator completes the entire part. Still other panel benders are integrated into fully automated cutting and forming systems. Sheet metal is cut, punched, and then formed on a panel bender, all on one extensive system.
In some systems, an operator places a blank against locating pins, and the machine makes all the bends on that side of the workpiece. Once those bends are complete, the operator rotates the workpiece, again places it against locating pins, and the panel bender takes it from there for all the bends on that edge of the panel. Alternatively, an operator can manipulate the piece between each bend if needed.
Because it doesnt have a manipulator to move the part in and out, it allows the machine to bend certain geometries that couldnt be made using the manipulator, said Paul Croft, bending product manager for Prima Power North America, Arlington Heights, Ill.
All these systems excel at high-product-mix production, considering that changeover times are minimal or nonexistent. Some have sheet size limits, depending on the machine model and how the sheet is manipulated during the bending cycle. Some offer features that allow for the machine to remove parts with a downward final flange. Some models have features that allow the systems to handle small parts, such as an integrated shear that can cut off a narrow part from a larger sheet. Others use a separate set of smaller hold-down clamping tools.
[Consider a] door and frame of an electrical cabinet, said Tom Bailey, TruBend product manager at TRUMPF Inc., Farmington, Conn. They always consist of large panels and small channels. If you can do both, you have an ideal application for a panel bender.
The panel benders upside: Once a blank is introduced into the machine, either automatically or manually, all bends are performed automatically with no operator handling required. Between bending cycles, universal blank-holder tooling moves to accommodate different bend lengths, but thats about it. No die width changes, no switching from a straight to gooseneck punch, or any of the other complications that come with press brake tooling. And the panel bender, like the folder and horizontal bending tooling on the brake, allows the worksheet to stay flat as the edge flange is bent.
As with any horizontal bending technology, a panel bender doesnt work for every part. Depending on the system, interior windows and cutouts can prevent the manipulator from having enough surface to grip and move the work into position. And the part itself needs a flat or near-flat surface. Some panel bending tables have vacuums or brushes to accommodate a few downward-facing shallow forms, like a louver or emboss. But in general, the machine needs the part to have a flat surface to move the part from bend to bend.
To handle an even greater variety of parts, some panel benders are integrated as part of a system that incorporates both automatic-tool-change press brakes and panel bending. Parts labeled with bar codes arrive at the bending station that has one operator running both a press brake and a panel bender. The operator scans the bar code, which spurs either the panel bender or press brake into action.
By the time the operator delivers the part to the bending machine, the program has been downloaded and the tooling arranged, said Bill Bossard, president of Salvagnini America Inc., Hamilton, Ohio. The machine forms the part, uses automatic angle correction as needed, then completes the job as the operator sends the formed part and retrieves the next, entirely different part.
In this situation, the operator could form a small bracket on the brake, then retrieve a panel (or utilize conveyor automation) and position it on the panel bender, no heaving required.
Large Workpiece Choices
Every option, from special brake tooling to automated systems incorporating several machines, has a business case to be made for it. Which to choose depends on a fabricators current and potential part and customer mix.
Regardless, choices abound. For operators straining their backs to lift a large panel through a press brakes bending cycle, thats a very good thing.
CIDAN Machinery Americas, www.cidanmachinery-americas.com
MetalForming Inc., www.metalforming-usa.com
Prima Power North America Inc., www.primapower.com
RAS Systems LLC, www.ras-systems.com
Salvagnini America Inc., www.salvagnini.com
TRUMPF Inc., www.us.trumpf.com
Wilson Tool International ®, www.wilsontool.com
Choosing the ideal panel bender
A panel bender is an effective metal forming machine for jobs involving materials with up to 1/8 inch thick. In one process, it is possible to rapidly complete a complex part that requires very accurate radius forming, hemming, or offset bends. The same operations performed on a press brake could be painstakingly slow.
The use of time on a press brake actually moving up and down to produce a bend might be 15 per cent of an operators time, said Bill Bossard, president, Salvagnini America. The balance of time is spent handling parts, finding parts, doing first-article checks, etc. And what we constantly hear from customers is that they wish there were a way to minimize or eliminate setup time on a press brake. Everybody is trying to drive down setup time. But once you start adding automated features to a press brake to make that possible, the price rises high enough that a panel bender becomes a viable alternative.
Any shop that produces a lot of box-shaped items HVAC and cabinet jobs in the right gauge may consider a panel bender a viable option. The question then becomes whether to choose a fully automated, semi-automated, or manually operated machine. The choice will come down to the type of work the shop is pursuing and price considerations.
Manually Positioned Options
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To describe any panel bender as manually operated is somewhat of a misnomer. In the case of TRUMPFs TruBend Center Series machine and Prima Powers FastBend machine, the operator loads a part is onto the panel bender and all of the bends on one side of the part are performed at once.
On the TRUMPF machine, a part as long as 10 feet can be bent with an 8-in. nesting height. It accepts sheet as thick as 1/8 in.
This is TRUMPFs first foray into the panel bending market. This machine was first unveiled in North America at FABTECH® Chicago in . Tom Bailey, product manager for the TruBend series at TRUMPF, said that the company is trying to differentiate itself in this market by launching a bender that it feels is flexible in unique ways, such that it sets itself apart from fully automated models.
One of the ways the manufacturer differentiates its panel bender is the manipulator used to move the part once the operator has positioned it for bending. The manipulator is a 2-axis design, which moves the part both in and out for bends, but also vertically.
Most panel benders you see on the market use a single-axis manipulator that just moves a part in and out of the machine to complete bends, said Bailey. Being able to move the part vertically opens up some possibilities. For example, a traditional limitation of panel benders has been that you cannot have a part finish with a down bend, because the part would then be stuck inside the machine. With a 2-axis manipulator, that is not a concern.
Another challenge for many panel benders is the forming of narrow channels. Because of the force required of the blank holders that hold the sheet down as a bend is completed, a certain minimum amount of flat material has to be clamped during bending.
If your part gets too narrow, the blank holders are too large to hold onto the part anywhere, said Bailey. So, although in theory these narrow channels are an ideal application for a panel bender, generally it is difficult for machines to achieve these bends because of how they are designed.
TRUMPFs bender includes an auxiliary set of blank holders that have a smaller profile and can be moved into position automatically when a narrow profile is necessary.
Bailey points to doors and frames as examples of parts that might be ideally suited for the particular benefits of the panel bender the company offers.
It could be the door and frame of an electrical cabinet, or it could be a door and frame for a building, he said. Regardless, they always consist of large panels and small channels. If you can do both, you have an ideal application for a panel bender.
Although the company is working on a fully automated version of its panel bender, Bailey noted that the addition of an automated system doesnt negate the value of a model with a manual positioner.
Once you go to a system with automatic part rotation, you introduce limitations on geometries, because now you have another mechanical manipulator that has to fit on the part to be able to rotate it, he explained. Again, narrow profiles and down flanges become difficult to deal with.
Prima Powers panel benders range from a manually positioned model to a fully automated system. The Fast Bend, or FBe, is the companys manually positioned model. As Paul Croft, bending product manager, Prima Power North America, explained, this model has become a go-to bender for special products.
Because it doesnt have a manipulator to move the part in and out, it allows us to bend certain geometries that couldnt be made using the manipulator, Croft said. For instance, we can bend parts that are a couple of inches narrower because there isnt a manipulator in the way. Also, because we use vacuum pads underneath the sheet to hold it in place and move it in and out of the bend, we can process parts with louvres in them, or that have a cutout in the middle.
This bender also has two different modes: standard, in which the part is automatically fed during the bending sequence of every side, and press brake mode, in which the sheet is moved manually bend by bend, which is useful for very narrow profiles.
Like the TruBend, the FBe gives a company flexibility to run complex parts that have special requirements that would be difficult to manage on a fully automated system.
Semi-automated Options
Formerly, one of the main advantages of manually positioned benders was that they allowed single-piece flow. This is useful for kitting work you can run a left-hand panel, a right-hand panel, the top to an assembly, and so forth, and everything is collected at the end in one kit ready to go to welding. There is an 8-second tool change between each part, but that is still much faster than a press brake. While manually positioned benders are still effective in this respect, a lot of shops that do kitting are drawn to semi-automatic panel benders if a manipulator isnt an issue.
The semi-automatic panel benders on the market require an operator to place the part in the machine. From that point, a manipulator takes hold of the part and processes it completely. The operator then simply removes the part and follows the same process again.
Salvagnini refers to its semi-automated models as its Performer series. These are made available in three standard sizes, encompassing bending parts from 4 ft. long to 8 ft. long.
These machines arent customized to the needs of each customer, said Bossard. We equip them with a series of features that are already pre-engineered and can be selected however the customer would like to put them.
If you have been to FABTECH at any time in the past six years, no doubt you have seen Salvagninis P1 or P2 model churning out parts. The parts are loaded manually, but once the part is on the table, the machine takes over. In the past five years, all of the Performer series machines have been upgraded to include automatic thickness measurement, angle control, automatic setup, and automatic blank holder adjustment. Bossard said the series has proven popular for kit sequence manufacturing, which might include single-piece part flow of as many as 10 pieces that would go to welding assembly afterward.
The P1 is distinct in that it is a fully electric machine. For this reason, it can bend sheet only to a maximum of 16 ga. All other Salvagnini machines (and those of its competitors) bend sheet up to 1/8 in.
When the P1 was first released a few years ago, it did not include automatic setup, which meant it required about a 5-minute setup time between one type of part and another. This detracted from its value for kit manufacturing. The addition of this capability has automatically made it more valuable to shops. The P1 can handle sheet up to 62 in. by 39 in., with a maximum bend length of 49 in. and bend height of 5 in.
The P1 also now allows for a last bend down.
The last bend down creates the requirement to have an additional safety circuit to protect the operator when he reaches in to remove that piece, Bossard explained. That has been available on our other machines for several years, but the specific safety circuit has now been designed such that we can include it on the P1.
The P2lean can handle sheet up to 98 in. by 62.9 in., bend length of 85.82 in., and height of 6.49 in.
Both machines are ideal for kitted manufacturing. The challenge, of course, is that you still require one operator per machine.
Even with a part with 16 bends in it, the machine is going to spit that part out in less than a minute, noted Bossard.
Prima has two models in this semi-automated line, the BCe and BCe Smart. As Croft explained, these machines have the processing speed of a fully automated bender, but with the ability to do a single piece or kitted assembly.
What it really boils down to is production requirements, Croft said. Arguably, you could purchase two BCe benders for the price of one of our fully-automated EBe panel bending systems. The EBe is really designed to be included in a full automation cell, whereas the BCe and BCe Smart machines are designed to be stand-alone units.
The BCe Smart is Primas newest foray into the panel bending market, and it was really designed to bring the price down for customers. With those design demands, some basic limitations have been put on this model.
Generally, we find that the majority of the market doesnt need any more than 80 in. of bending, said Croft. It is the only machine that is one-size-fits-all to keep it at a reasonable price point. Other machines that we make can go up to 140+ in.
The other difference between the BCe and the BCe Smart is in the loading/unloading. The BCe is a fully-enclosed unit that runs a part into the enclosure, processes it, and rolls it out once it is processed. The BCe Smart has a smaller footprint. The operator places the part directly below the manipulator, which then takes the part and processes it. An LED reference bar helps the operator pre-center the part. Safety for the operator is provided by a laser light guard. When the part is processed, the operator can simply reach in and remove it from the table.
Again, this type of machine is ideal for kitted parts.
With this machine you have an average of a 10-second tool change between different parts, said Croft. If I have a part that has a 40-second cycle time, I am only adding 6 to 10 seconds to process a single part. That tool change could have taken 10+ minutes on a press brake, so if Im still only at 50 seconds while able to run a one-piece flow, a lot of people can live with that. It is still going to be the most efficient machine you have if you want to do 50 or 500 parts at a time.
Fully Automated Benders
The limitation for all of the semi-automated systems discussed previously is that none of them can be equipped for integration in a fully automated production line.
If you had our EBe panel bender as a stand-alone system, you could throw a stack of 100 parts on the left-hand side of the machine and it would spit them out as completed parts at the end, said Croft. But the benefit of that particular system is that it can be automated even further with one of our larger systems. It could be combined with a laser or shear or a blanking machine, and with robotic automation for sorting and stacking.
Croft emphasized that although the EBe can be sold as a stand-alone machine, it is really most efficient when it is part of a larger automated cell. The fact that it can be incorporated into any number of larger-scale systems is the biggest upside, he said. The EBe can be made in 133 in. and 147 in.; those larger sizes wouldnt make much sense in a manually loaded machine where the operator has to handle parts. Thats how it proves its worth on a shop floor rapid part production without operator interference.
The models and special tooling can vary more substantially than the semi-automated options. For instance, there are eight models in Salvagninis P4 line of machines. Two of these models include flange, or open, heights of 10 in. Panel benders usually have a maximum open height of 8 in. which is another limitation in the type of parts that can be processed on a panel bender. Gradually, however, the limitations are shifting.
The two new machines with the larger open heights have maximum bend lengths of 88 in. and 122 in. Bossard suggested that the 88-in. model is ideal for electrical box manufacturing, because electrical boxes have tall sides.
It is also ideal for people making drawers for workbenches, and food service environments, said Bossard. The 122-in. machine is particularly good for transformer cabinets, which are made of heavy material like 14-ga. stainless.
The point is that these more sophisticated machines can be adapted to the needs of particular industries.
Growing Sophistication
Panel benders are an attractive product because they can do so much without human interaction, and the companies that make them are doing what they can to increase their sophistication to give users peace of mind in their operations.
For instance, Salvagnini has changed the drive systems on its panel benders to run on electric actuators. Other than the P1, which is an all-electric machine, its machines now use fluid power for the clamping of the part and the actuation of the bending blades. Everything else on the machines is electric.
The use of fluid power is very effective for low-speed, high-torque actions, and that is what we are doing, said Bossard. The elimination of large hydraulic tanks, pumps, and motors means less maintenance.
But as Bossard explained many other innovations are making panel benders efficient and effective for metal fabricators.
For instance, we are using an eddy current device to confirm whether the correct material has been introduced in the machine, said Bossard. It will differentiate among aluminum, carbon, and stainless steel, just in case an operator is careless. And our machines measure the thickness of every piece of material that goes into the machine because thickness is the greatest variant to angle.
We are also close to releasing some angle correction technology that accounts for mechanical property differentials, Bossard continued.
Panel bending options have expanded in the past few years. If you have the type of complex parts that suit such a machine, you have much to consider the size of parts, automation, and flange height requirements are just three issues.
Editor Robert Colman can be reached at .
Prima Power Canada Ltd., 224-210-, www.primapower.com
Salvagnini Canada, 905-361-, www.salvagnini.com
TRUMPF, 905-363-, www.us.trumpf.com
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