Blog by Alan Pickering.
In a Nut Shell, Automatic Setup = Right First Time (as far as humanly possible).
It is fundamentally about eliminating as many variables in what is the complicated process of forming metal.
I have to say, when we invented the first All-Electric Tube Bending Machine in 1994, people just didn’t get it, until they saw it in action.
My first experience of the Tube Bending world was with my dad, Terry Pickering, where bending machine setters would have their own “Black Book” of how to set up a machine with different positions, forces, angles, positions and subsequently programs all to make the same part, hence the term Black Art of Tube Bending was frequently banded around.
I guess this was relatively forgivable in the simpler tube bending world of the 70s & 80s.
Then when people started pushing up the difficulty factor a notch or two, through different materials, thinner wall tube, and tight radii, this Black Art and Black Book suddenly became a huge risk for businesses and was crying out for change.
My dad then had the crazy idea of an All Electric Tube Bending Machine with Automatic Setup, remembering all the positions and forces so that you could achieve right first time, and I was part of the team that brought that to life.
It wasn’t easy and we hit a number of technical challenges with the Servo Technology of the time, but we got there in the end, filed a patent and the rest is history as they say.
Unison has continued to be the pioneers in this space with the largest range of All Electric tube bending machines in the world and having created the worlds largest All Electric machine with 660,000Nm of bend torque over 10 years ago – watch this machine in action.
It took us a long time to convince people that this was a game changer, with potential customers saying come back when you’ve sold 100 machines.
Our big break through when an engineer from Airbus bought into the concept and we did trials for them, the first machine paid for itself within 16 weeks in reduced scrap alone!
We eventually sold them six machines and the site became their centre of excellence.
Being able to move an axis using a Servo Motor is old hat, but the trick was to be able to control the force it applied on the difficult axis, such as the Clamp and Pressure die.
It became very frustrating when customers would compare our machines with machines that had just replaced a hydraulic cylinder with a servo controlled screw jack, going through the same linkage – they had completely missed the point!
Fundamentally you need to
You still get credible manufacturers with bending machines out in the field that are designed wrong, and will never be able to push the boundaries of the possible as materials and customers requirements get harder and harder.
If you design a machine incorrectly, you can’t do the other clever things such as Laser Springback and Correction and compromise features such as Multi-Stack Bending– see previous blogs…..
Find out more about our ground-breaking Opt2Sim Scan in our next Blog.
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