Automated System for Hole Saw Forming
By Eric Schreiber, SECO/WARWICK Corp., USA
This article describes an automated system
for hot forming of hole saw blades. The system combines a
robotic loader and unloader with a custom engineered Rotary
Hearth Furnace.
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fig. 1 System Layout
Photo compliments of Tring Corporation
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SECO/WARWICK Corporation has partnered with
Tring Corporation to design an automated system for hot forming
of hole saw blades. The system combines a robotic loader
and unloader with a custom Rotary Hearth Furnace.
In the saw forming system, an operator loads
straight blades into a magazine. The loader robot then
loads single blades into slots located in the furnace
hearth. The blades are then heated to the proper
temperature for forming. When the heating cycle is
complete, the blades are unloaded by a robotic griping arm, and
placed into a forming die. The forming die is water
cooled, and also acts as a quench for the saw blades.
The custom Rotary Hearth Furnace is designed
around a 41 inch diameter precision machined hearth. The
hearth has a series of slots machined into it to hold saw blades
standing on edge. A cam-driven indexer is used for turning
the hearth rather than a complex servo drive. The furnace
is insulated with brick, and utilizes silicon carbide heating
elements. The furnace atmosphere is nitrogen, with small
amounts of natural gas added to prevent decarburization.
Atmosphere is also controlled in the forming station to provide
scale free finishes, no after forming clean-up operations are
necessary.
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| fig. 2 Finished Blades |
fig. 3 Tooling Set |
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Photos compliments of Tring Corporation |
The system is designed to produce hole
saws ranging from .750 inch diameter to 6.000 inch diameter,
heights from 1.375 inch to 2.250 inch and thickness from .042
inch to .050 inch. Other sizes can be accommodated with
modifications. The system is available as a single or
double loading configuration, which can double the production of
a single furnace. Blades of more than one size can be run
simultaneously by incorporating two loaders and unloaders in one
furnace. Each line can produce more than 1900 hole saw
blades per eight hour shift. The entire system is
monitored by a single PLC. An Allen-Bradley Panel-View
operator interface is used to check system status, control
loader/unloader operation, furnace temperature, hearth indexing,
atmosphere, die cooling and former operations. The
standard furnace is designed with four doors, for the double
system. If production only requires a single system, two
doors are simply blocked off with brick. If additional
production is required, the system can easily be retrofitted to
the dual-load configuration. A single forming system
requires 400 square feet of floor space, while a double system
requires only 600 square feet. For more
information on Tring Corporation, check out their website at http://www.tringcorp.com. |
