Product category:
CNC punching and profiling
News Release from: LVD (UK) | Subject: Global 20 CNC punch press
Edited by the Manufacturingtalk Editorial
Team on 17 December 2002
CNC punch press chosen of ease of set-up
Producing over 30,000 electrical enclosures a month for consumer-type circuit protection equipment a manufacturer saught an easy to set up and accurate CNC punch press.
Producing over 30,000 electrical enclosures a month for consumer-type circuit protection equipment meant the decision to purchase the most suitable punch press was foremost in the mind of Electrium Sales of Wythenshawe just outside of Manchester Recounts Bernard Frain Engineering Manager: "We carefully assessed machines from five different manufacturers and decided the Global 20 from LVD gave the best combination of all round speed, ease of set up, build quality, accuracy and capacity
This article was originally published on Manufacturingtalk on 25 Jun 2001 at 8.00am (UK)
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In addition, the machine had the added advantage of being able to utilise existing tooling from our older Strippit punch press." Installed just over a year ago, by LVD (UK) of Marlow, the 200kN fully programmable hydraulic ram Global 20 has made quite an impression on Bernard Frain.
"It has allowed us to reduce cycle times on components by around 15 per cent but with the ability to set the machine much faster, we have been able to reduce batch sizes of our enclosures down to 100 when required." He follows on to describe how the machine has improved production economics allowing circuit protection enclosures to be produced and assembled in smaller quantities.
"These can now be produced within three working days giving us a significant saving of over 10 per cent on lead times," he maintains.
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If you ever looked at the name on your household electrical circuit protection system, there's a good chance that the safety system is supplied by Electrium.
The company embraces a number of leading brands in the low-voltage electrical industry including Wylex, Crabtree, Britmax and Appleby and has become one of the UK's largest independent electrical groups.
Growth evolved both organically and by acquisition under the ownership of Hanson PLC culminating in a management buy-out in April 1997.
It brings together seven of the leading brands in the electrical industry to offer a complete range of low voltage installation products from a switched socket to the main switchgear in an industrial installation.
The company employs around 1,500 people in its global manufacturing operations investment programme.
The UK head office is located in Brownhills, West Midlands and some 380 people are employed at the Wythenshawe manufacturing site.
The company has also found the Global 20 has allowed design changes to be easily incorporated and has increased flexibility whereby production is now able to mix and match components according to assembly schedules.
The completed parts are then shipped out to a warehouse for storage and eventual distribution to various electrical outlets.
A further advantage of the move to smaller batch sizes is the release of valuable floor space at the Wythenshawe plant.
Electrium also produces enclosures out of plastic for circuit protection systems which currently account for about 65 per cent of total output.
However, its metal enclosure product is still favoured by certain market sectors and in specific geographical regions for which the installation of the Global punch press has ensured that these casings can be made more efficiently.
While some flat enclosure developments produced on the machine are formed up using press brakes, most are formed into boxes using hard tooling on mechanical presses.
The Global 20 is used for some 16 hours a day to produce enclosures and fascias ranging upwards in size from 228mm by 127mm.
The punch press handles sheet sizes up to 2500mm by 1250mm without a reposition and in sheet thicknesses between 1mm and 3mm.
Typical operations performed from the 30 station turret, which has four stations of 38.9 diameter auto-index of which one has a three station indexable multi-tool, include punching, nibbling, corner notching and embossing.
Bernard Frain comments how they have found features of the machine a major contributor to productivity.
For instance, Smart-Stroke, which automatically optimises the hover height of the ram according to the distance between hits, the high axis positioning speeds of 110 m/min and a nibbling rate of 900 strokes/min.
The Global 20 has also proved equally productive on batch sizes as big as 12,000.
Prior to the Global 20, quantities of this level were the sole preserve of hard tooling, which was totally inflexible to design change.
He added: "At the other end of the scale, we can even make a single component if we need to, through the off-line programming and DNC link to the machine." The Global 20 has a positioning accuracy of +0.10mm and will repeat within +0.05mm.
With the fully programmable hydraulic ram, the machine provides high levels of flexibility for punching and forming operations.
As Bernard Frain points out, the patented 'Smart-Stroke' maximises productivity during cycles without operator or programmer intervention.
With Smart-Stroke, the punching cycle is automatically optimised by the software which determines the hover height of the ram as the sheet passes underneath based on the thickness of the material and distance between holes to be punched.
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