“Several years ago, we made the strategic decision to ramp-up our ability to provide value-added fabrication capabilities for our North American service-center customers,” shares Kloeckner regional general manager Kendall Carter. That plan came to fruition when the firm acquired American Fabricators late in 2015. In a press release issued at the time of the acquisition, a Kloeckner executive said:
“We worked closely throughout the acquisition with the Haley team to put a plan together regarding what we wanted to add to the shop in terms of equipment and capabilities,” Carter shares. “We definitely had a hit list coming out of the gate—including two additional presses and a new state-of-the-art feed line, as well as control upgrades for some of the presses.
Takeover Job Provides Cap-Ex Motivation
Of note: The motivation to upgrade and retrofit new press controls came from a Kloeckner energy-sector OEM customer request to add takeover tooling for a high-volume stamping job. Haley Tool operations manager Scott White explains:
“Working with our customer to evaluate this job, we decided to step up our capabilities and ensure that we could run this job reliably and continuously. At the same time we needed to add more flexibility and capacity to the pressroom.”
The overall capital program, then, included upgrading an existing 250-ton Stamtec mechanical press with a new state-of-the-art Coiltech feed line (15-in. width capacity), new controls and light curtains; and the addition of a new 440-ton Seyi mechanical press (120-in. bed). In addition, the capex program included the purchase of a used and refurbished 275-ton Stamtec 144-in.-bed press, with upgraded light curtains; and it added a new control system and light curtains to an existing 400-ton Niagara press, along with a new Dynamatic digital controller.
“It’s the new feed line, and the need to ensure precise synchronization between feed and press, that added extra motivation to upgrade our press controls,” White says. “And, with the upgraded controls we also wanted to elevate our ability to add and use sensors to our tools, for die protection and to help optimize press run times. And, of course, the new controls provide optimum operator safety, very important to us at Kloeckner Metals.”
Electrical Parts, Light-Truck Chassis Parts
For Kloeckner, Haley Tool provides higher-volume capabilities, servicing customers in a variety of industries, including the electrical-products industry—primarily bracketry stamped at speeds to 75 strokes/min.—and chassis parts for the light-truck market.
“To prepare the pressroom for growth and increased high-volume production,” says White, “we knew we needed a new feed line, which then helped to justify the investment in new press controls and die protection.”
To date Haley Tool has upgraded three presses with Link 5100-MPC resolver/encoder-based units, along with Link’s Black Max safety light curtains. And, it expects to upgrade the controls on several additional presses in the coming months.
Carter and White both are quick to acknowledge the help of Link Systems’ preferred installation team at J. Williams & Associates, a manufacturers’ rep firm in Rittman, OH, in installing the new controls in a timely manner so as to not interrupt production.
Among the list of 5100-MPC features:
- OmniLink 801 operator touchscreen terminal
- Intelligent diagnostics
- Storage and quick recall of as many as 100 jobs
- 6 to 2000 strokes/min. working range
- Operating modes: off, inch, automatic timed inch, setup/stop time test, single stroke and continuous stroking
- Dual-limit stopping-time-performance (brake) monitor
- Clutch-engagement-time monitor
- Automatic top-stop compensation for variable-speed presses
- Two configurable part-counter groups driven by stroke or sensors that can count actual parts into a bin
- Configurable hardware and software for a wide range of lubrication systems, hydraulic overloads, and flywheel brakes
- Four configurable die-protection inputs.
Both control-system installs also included tonnage monitoring and light curtains—important additions, per White.
“We bring in a lot of takeover tools,” he says, “and other than a part print we often don’t know a lot about how the tools operate, leaving us to try to calculate tonnages. The tonnage monitoring will help us ensure that we don’t overload our presses, causing damage to a press or the tools.”
New Digital Drive Controller, Too
In addition to wiring in the new controls, the J. Williams team also installed a new drive on the 400-ton Stamtec.
“Once we got the press running with the new control,” explains J. Williams sales engineer Mike Williams, “we found that the existing drive was running a little choppy. So, we installed a new digital eddy-current drive controller (a Dynamatic EC-2000), and all is well.”
Per Dynamatic, the EC-2000 digital controller offers precise speed control within 0.1% from no load to full load, along with 250% rated torque for starting and overload conditions. It also offers remote control via Ethernet, PLC compatibility and the ability to interface with computer-controlled systems.
In the end, notes Williams, such control retrofits provide stampers with dramatically improved diagnostics and easier troubleshooting. “A lot of the older machines we work on don’t even have schematics available, and if they do they’re really old and can be difficult to decipher,” he says. “For its part, Link Systems not only supplies detailed drawings to help with diagnosing any issues, it also keeps a copy at Link’s facility so that we can access them if necessary. That all adds up to stampers being able to limit downtime scenarios to minutes in many cases, instead of hours or even days.”
End Results
“We really feel like we improved the productivity of the presses at Haley Tool,” Williams says, “by enabling the manufacturer to limit any downtime. And, we greatly improved safety for the press operators—there are no single points of failure where the presses can stroke. We also continue to work with Haley Tool on die protection. Impressively, just a week or two after installation, Haley already was using some of the available die-protection features. One challenging new die, in particular, likely would have experienced a mishit without the new controls and die protection added.”
Kloeckner Metals’ Carter explains the positive impact of the control retrofits:
“We now can provide extremely reliable, continuous pressroom operation for our higher-volume customers, thanks to the new coil line and the press control upgrades that promise to minimize or eliminate any downtime. We expect more projects to evolve from soft-tooled fabrication projects to stamping, as volumes expand.
“It’s good for us to have a stamper where we can graduate these jobs and not lose customers to other suppliers,” Carter continues. “We also can proactively approach customers and show them how we can take some cost out of a project by going to hard tooling/stamping. The control upgrades anchor that strategy, providing a highly dependable operation at Haley Tool.” MF
View Glossary of Metalforming Terms
See also: Link Systems, Stamtec, Inc., Coiltech Corp.
Technologies: Pressroom Automation, Coil and Sheet Handling, Stamping Presses
