Page 18 - Metalforming Magazine April 2022

It’s Raining Pressroom Technology
Much of the material is painted inhouse, via slitting and coil-coating operations. And while the firm has been investing in new technology, “we’re also trying to get smarter about how we develop our tools to optimize productivity,” Thompson adds. “Much of that development is proprietary but suffice to say that as order volume for gutter accessories continues to rise, improving press speed and parts out per hit are top of mind.”
Each of Stamtec’s 110-metric-ton (121-U.S. ton) presses boasts a 7-in. stroke and maximum press speed of 65 strokes/ min., with a bolster area of 71 by 25.5 in. The 160-metric-ton (176 U.S. ton) model provides 8 in. of stroke, maximum speed of 55 strokes/min. and bolster area of 79 by 30 in.
“The Link Electric press controls provided with the presses,” Thompson shares, “along with the ability to employ tonnage monitors and in-die sensing in a plug-and-play fashion have been game changers for us. Adding in-die electronics to the older presses proved challenging.”
Thompson specifies feed sensing and part-out sensing on all of his tools, helping to avoid downtime from crash- es. And, he recently added another toolmaker to the team to enable inhouse retrofitting of dies with sen- sors, rather than outsourcing.
“We really don’t want to rely solely on the operators to stop the presses to avoid part pileups or feed jams— another focal point as we continue our journey to become worldclass and rely more on technology and less on people.”
New Coil Lines,
and Plenty of Training
With the new presses came new servo feeds—two different model num- bers from Stamtec. The LUH/NCF- series coil lines—Spectra has two mod- els—feature two-in-one uncoiler/ straightener (nine rolls) units; manually operated coil keepers; and loop-control light sensors, paired with separate servo feeders. The lines boast a maxi- mum working speed of 16 m/min. One
Forming gutter hangers, end caps and the like from thin-gauge aluminum doesn’t require a lot of tonnage, according to Spectra Gutter Systems’ corporate maintenance manager Kevin Thompson; bed size is more important. Each of the firm’s new Stamtec presses features an OmniLink 5100-MPC press control and operator terminal from Link Systems, along with die protection and an optional tonnage monitor to measure and display the force being applied to the press frame.
16 MetalForming/April 2022
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model, the LUH/NCF-400, offers a max- imum coil width of 153⁄4 in. and coil weight to 4400 lb.; model LUH/NCF-500 coil lines feed coils to 19.7 in. wide and weighing as much as 6600 lb. Thompson greatly appreciates the benefits of servo- feed technology.
“Several years ago, we primarily ran air feeds,” he notes. “But many of our older tools are not piloted, meaning that coil-feed accuracy and repeatability directly impact part quality. With servo feeders, the material feeds precisely and repeatedly. And, we have fewer mainte- nance issues.
“To bring our production team up to speed on the coil lines and new presses, we felt that investing in additional train- ing with M-Tech was essential,” Thomp- son continues, “from a safety and pro- ductivity standpoint, and to help prevent damage to the equipment.”
Spectra Gutter operators attended M- Tech’s three-day training course, covering a variety of topics including die setting, feed-line setup, conveyor setup and oper- ation, press-control programming, and die protection.
“So far, the additional operator train- ing is working,” Thompson says. “We’ve virtually eliminated unplanned down- time on the equipment. And, the new press lines have been providing nice, even tonnage profiles across the entire press bed, critical as some of our dies are 4 to 5 ft. long. On our older presses and particularly with draw dies, any issues with ram parallelism showed up in subpar part quality. We had several dies that gave us problems on the older presses that, once moved to the new presses, now run great.”
Thompson also credits the new press lines with improving the pressroom’s ability to run takeover dies, “often not the highest-quality tooling,” he says. “Since moving some of these tools over to the new presses, part quality has noticeably improved. We’ve increased our uptime, leading to improved effi- ciency and more accurate production scheduling. Improving press reliability is providing a huge advantage when it comes to achieving schedule completion on a daily basis.”
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