Page 22 - MetalForming September 2012

Servo Press
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stroke on the Aida servo press is 16 in.), compared to 14 in. before. The press now runs at 52 strokes/min., a considerable productivity boost com- pared to running at 40 strokes/min. previously.
“One of the big advantages of the servo-drive press,’ says Lambert, “is that it can perform like several different presses. We can run 400- or 600-ton jobs on it, vary its shut height and stroke length, and manipulate ram speed and tonnage anywhere during the stroke, as often as we want to.”
In addition to production jobs, the flexibility of the servo press has proven its value in tryout and troubleshooting tasks. “Our tooling department loves the servo press,” says Holtel. “When there’s time available on the press, we can use it for die development, since we can operate the press under full tonnage but at very slow speeds. We can watch the material form under very controlled but production-like conditions.
“In more than one case, we’ve been able to use the capabilities of the servo press to diagnose problems with pro- duction dies running on other presses,” continues Holtel. “In one case, for example, stampings were fracturing in the tool. We thought ram speed might be the culprit. But when we ran the die in the servo press at very slow speed, fracturing still occurred. That allowed us to turn our attention to other possible causes.”
Here to Stay
“Knowing what we know now about servo-drive technology,” surmises Fled- derman, “the next time we’re in the market for a new press we definitely will consider another servo-drive model. It’s like having three or four presses in one—we can run flat parts really quick- ly, and also perform deep drawing under very controlled conditions.
“We believe that the Aida press has positioned the company at least 2 yr. ahead of the curve,” he adds. “Even though we brought the press in to run just the one job, the roll of the dice already has paid off, while preparing our company for the future.” MF
20 MetalForming/September 2012
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