Product category:
Fabrication Subcontracting Services
News Release from: Clamason Industries | Subject: Subcontract presswork - eddy current detectors
Edited by the Manufacturingtalk Editorial
Team on 22 May 2006
Eddy current detector solves presswork
problem
Eddy current sensors, located within a press tool, measure the gap between stripper face and die in the closed position to detect pierced slugs, which otherwise might stick in the strip.
Wired into the control box and set up for a specific machine, the GBP 7,000 Unidor eddy current detector, produced in Germany and just installed at Clamason Industries, Kingswinford, UK, is a most valuable contactless aid to process control when metal components are being automatically stamped out of strip at high speed Eddy current sensors are located within the tool to measure the gap between stripper face and die in the closed position
This article was originally published on Manufacturingtalk on 1 Mar 2006 at 8.00am (UK)
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The device detects pierced slugs which might be sucked back onto the strip by the vacuum created when a precise punch cuts through the strip and pushes through into the die.
This can be a major problem, for example when stamping out tightly toleranced round holes, especially where a more usual overload sensor has proved inadequate when making thin, intricate parts.
Fouling the process in such a way will naturally damage subsequent components and possibly the tool also.
Clamason Industries initially invested in the Unidor unit for its diecasting customer Dynacast France.
Here a door lock link pressing (door latching actuation component), subsequently assembled and supplied for use on the Ford Focus and Mazda 3, is particularly susceptible because the parts are supplied on reels, making it very difficult to detect slug retention problems in-house.
The eddy current sensor also guarantees that any foreign bodies are spotted at the precise moment that the problem arises, stopping the press before damage can occur to subsequent parts or to tooling, this despite the fact that the press may be running at 500 parts/min.
Once identified, the offending slug is easily and quickly removed, avoiding tool damage as well as costly part replacement, where faulty components might typically have been due for delivery with zero defects just-in-time onto the end of a customer's assembly line.
Accordingly, when the sensors detect a variation of current outside the norm owing to interference between stripper plate and die face, the eddy current detector immediately halts the process safely and securely.
Neither the sturdy and compact detector nor its connector cabling is affected by any oil mist or spray inherent in the process.
Clamason Industries presently uses this Unidor eddy current detector on a 400kN (40 tonf) Kaiser/Bruderer press, but has two more on order for another Bruderer (250kN - 25 tonf) from Switzerland and a new, 1100kN (110 tonf) Taiwanese Chin Fong press - which will be used at the same location exclusively for Clamason's medical industry customers.
Installation will again be fulfilled by Unidor's sole UK agent - Bruderer UK of Luton, Beds.
With a proud 30-year history, the OEM Unidor, based in Pforzheim, south-west Germany, has over 3,000 successful installations worldwide of its control and monitoring systems for metalforming.
The company's continuing objective is to realize increased performance, better quality and lower costs from its customers' production plant, and it is now achieving this at Clamason Industries.
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