Page 13 - MetalForming June 2010

The Tower facility also recently invested to upgrade its sheet-fanning setups with the purchase of 20 of these Sheet Seeker fanners. The units employ a sliding mechanism that only fans the top few inches of each blank stack, rather than magnetizing the entire stack.
“With that many presses, replacing cups with magnets can really create a signif- icant amount of savings related to sup- plying compressed air to the end effec- tors,” says Washburn. “Companies can typically run fewer or smaller com- pressors, reduce energy consumption and reduce the maintenance required on their compressors.”
Better Blank Fanning
In addition to using magnets for part transfer, the Tower facility also recently invested to upgrade its sheet- fanning setups. Earlier this year it replaced its aging and very heavy solid fanning magnets with Industrial Mag- netics’ new Sheet Seeker fanners, some 60 percent lighter and therefore much safer and easier to use. The new fanners
employ a slid-
ing mecha-
nism that only
fans the top
few inches of
each blank
stack, rather
than magnet-
izing the entire stack, which can be as tall as 18 in. at Tower. The sliding mag- net automatically centers on the top of the stack, and as each sheet lifts away, by robot or pick-and-place device, the magnet indexes down the stack.
“Our operators may be required to set up several fanners at a time,” says Klosowski, “and compared to being required to lug around 50-lb. magnets rather than the (less than 20-lb.) Sheet Seekers, their jobs have gotten much
less strenuous. And safer—have you ever gotten your fingers stuck between a 50- or 60-lb. rare-earth magnet and a stack of steel sheets?” he asks hypo- thetically (reminding me of why I write about metalforming practices and pro- cedures, rather than actually do the work myself ).
“The fanners separate the sheets very reliably, top to bottom,” adds Klosows- ki, “creating a nice peeling motion start- ing at the edges.” MF
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METALFORMING / JUNE 2010 11
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