Page 31 - MetalForming-Dec-2018-issue

testing and product support,” says Dunn. Packing, too, with MRI’s original 28,000-sq.-ft. facility now used for fab- ricating the crates used for the 750- to 1500-lb. products transported by trac- tor trailers or shipped via ocean con- tainers.
“Totally vertically integrated,” Dunn repeats.
MRI’s inventory of equipment is, in a word, extensive, as is its materials usage. The new addition on the main MRI facility will include an automated powdercoat line; glass-tempering, heat- strengthening and annealing capabil- ity; high-speed digital frit printing on glass; aluminum-extrusion and 3D- bending capability; two fully robotic/ automatic, four-bowl hardware inser- tion machines; and one robotic cell for post-weld grind/deburr, knockout removal and blank shearing.
Existing equipment includes a jumbo glass-fabrication line with an autoloader system, glass scribe and break, five-axis glass CNC machine, double-sided glass-washer/scrubber equipment, 1440-dpi digital-ink glass printer and curing ovens; and a fully automated PCB assembly for surface- mount and through-hole components with capacity to build approximately 400,000 circuit boards/yr.—each having about 1000 electrical components. This PCB assembly line also includes con- formal-coating capabilities.
And then there’s MRI’s sheetmetal- fabrication operations:
• Two (each building) 6-kW fiber lasers with material handling;
• One dual-head CNC waterjet cut- ter with pneumatic drills;
• One 250-W CO2 laser;
• Four press brakes with hemming tables and dynamic crown correction;
• Two automated panel benders;
• Six multi-bowl manual hardware- insertion machines;
• One (each building) 10-ft., 10- gauge shear (robot or manual load);
• One 60-in. sheetmetal deburr sander;
• Two 12-in. and one 48-in. vibratory deburring machines;
Designed to be configurable with modular on/off-loading options, the Multibend enables a manufacturing facility to start with a manual configuration and later integrate robotic handling as volume and budgets allow.
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• Two robotic welders, each with dual rotisseries and Lazy Susan stations; • One five-axis, CNC extrusion pro-
filer; and
• One RAS Multibend-Center 79.31-
2 with dual-station automatic gantry loader and robotic unloader.
As for materials used annually, the company consumes 1 million lb. of anti-reflective coated glass, 1 million lb. of 5052-H32 aluminum alloy; 300,000 lb. of 304 stainless steel and 200,000 lb. of various aluminum-extru- sion profiles.
No-Mark Bending
While MRI continues to use other panel benders, where the absence of marking is important it employs the RAS metal-folding system, installed in July 2018. “In fact, we’re now transfer- ring as many parts—profiles and essen- tially completed chassis—as possible from our other machines to the RAS.”
Why? “Because,” says Dunn, “the folding technology behind this equip- ment eliminates the tools that slide over, stretch, mark and scratch the material during bending while increas- ing bend quality and accuracy.”
Here’s how. Using an optical scan- ner, the Multibend RAS 79.31-2 meas- ures the blanks, held in place by blank-
loading suction cups on the load table, which ensures accuracy of the finished partwhile accelerating cycle times because as one part bends another part is scanned. Additionally, crowning is not necessary due to a proprietary ‘beam-in-a-beam’ folding-beam design. In short, the rigidity of the machine yields consistently straight parts with- out the need for a maintenance-prone mechanical crowning system.
The system’s main manipulator rotates and moves the workpiece with a 0.001-deg. rotation angle and 0.004- in. linear accuracy; the 3D folding- beam movement of the system’s up- down tools enable scratch-free bending. The tab tools enable the for- mation of complex geometries.
Moreover, the system’s 120.5-in. maximum working length provides MRI with the length and capacity required for parts production, while the tool changer can set up any tool length in seconds.
Even on 10-ft.-long parts, “we are achieving bend-angle/flange-length accuracies as tight as ±12 to 15 min. of arc and ±0.001 to 0.003 in. down the entire length of the part,” says Dunn, adding that the part-to-part variation is so good that “it rarely requires much, if any, operator correction.”
Fabrication: Bending