Page 19 - MetalForming February 2020

Sensitive Sensing ‘Sees’ Slugs
By sensing force on the stripper plate, the X-series sys- tem can pick up minute changes, important for slug detection in production of small connectors or electrical parts.
“The sensoring immediate-
ly will pick up any bending of
the stripper plate,” explains Joe Bortolameolli, product special-
ist at Brankamp. “Normally,
plate pressure will experience
no force changes unless there
is a defect, such as a slug. We’ve picked up defects as small as a plastic wrapper on the metal strip passing through. Such detection prevents the defect from passing through and ruin- ing parts and tools. This monitoring tells the real story of what's going on in the tooling—what a metal former really can't see with an overall tonnage or overall distance sensor. It's impor-
User-friendly touchscreens enable quick visu- alization of force and other data, and provide an effective means of troubleshooting and process adjustment.
tant to have an eye in the tool.”
The X-series process monitoring setup also encompasses acoustic sen- sors that pick up on the snapping of punches in tooling, and immediately
shuts down the press.
“If the punch snaps,” explains Bor-
tolameolli, “it creates a different fre- quency range than the normal forming
force. Usually, as tooling recedes, the punch will snap and break. That can’t be monitored with distance sensors.”
The ability to employ unique sens- ing in unique ways allows for new prob- lem-solving capabilities.
“A stamping customer recently expe- rienced shutdowns after every 10 press strokes,” says Bortolameolli, providing an example of such capabilities. “We found no slugs, but the sensors picked up a definite change in force on the stripper plate. Upon further examina- tion, we found a clogged oil-mist mech- anism. Instead of regular misting, every 10 strokes it would release a blob of oil onto the strip, resulting in a force increase and an indent in the thin mate- rial. It was a unique problem that wouldn’t be caught with other types of sensing.” M F
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