ADVANCED COIL HANDLING EQUIPMENT FOR THE PRESSROOM

Machinery includes stand-alone roll feeds, straighteners, reels, cradles and air feeds to complete integrated feed line systems, including the heaviest and widest coil feeding systems available for metal stamping.

COE Press Equipment (Sterling Heights, MI) upgraded a 16-year old coil processing line at the Husqvarna (Orangeburg, SC) facility that manufactures Craftsmen and other brand name riding lawnmowers. The upgrades met requirements for plant layout, material flow, coil loading, coil threading and machine configuration while providing another 15 years of manufacturing life to the equipment at 55 percent of the cost of new equipment.

Equipment upgrades included changing the reel from traveling to stationary, replacing the stationary coil lift with a traveling coil car, a new heavy duty peeler-threader hold down station and a new threading table. Additionally, individual components such as straightener bearings, rolls, gears and idler shafts were replaced as needed.

New configurations and line modifications included changing the direction of the reel and straightener, changing the straightener from an “incline” head to standard, changing from an overhead loop to a standard loop area, relocating all operator controls for the new feed direction, and repairing damage to straightener keyways.

The entire system was also upgraded to a ServoMaster Controller and motorized passline height adjustment to improve set-up and reliability of the servo-feed. The ServoMaster uses a “Feed Advisor” feature to calculate job set-ups and has “On the Fly” feed length micro adjustment, 500 job memory storage, inch or metric programming, serial communications capability, password-protected job editing and parameters, and English or Spanish language.

To help Husqvarna keep their lines up and running at maximum productivity, the COE service department performs mechanical and electrical inspections of the equipment that can help increase overall line speed.  “The retrofits and refurbished equipment can help companies improve their processes and gain a competitive edge, even if they are not in a financial position to purchase all new equipment,” said Jim Ward, the sales manager of COE.

COE also shipped an order for a special tension stand and rewind reel for oscillate wound coils to the Tyler Pipe coupling manufacturing facility in Marshfield, MO. Tyler Pipe is part of the McWane family of companies consisting of nearly two dozen organizations dedicated to engineering and manufacturing of quality pipe, valves, hydrants, fittings, couplings and steel fabricating products.

The Marshfield system achieves rewind speeds up to 300 fpm. The oscillating rewind reel handles coils up to 4,000 lb capacity and 12 in overall width. The narrow coil stock is wound around a cardboard core that can go as large as 36 in OD. True radius mandrel pads on the rewind reel help to maintain consistent pressure and shape of the coil ID. The coil width and diameter are determined by the job recipe parameters stored within the PLC.

The rewind wheel is mounted on precision linear bearings with ±12 in of travel for building the oscillate-wound coils. The reel also has servo-driven rotation and side-to-side controls for precise monitoring of the process. The tension stand features a variable air pressure setting to enable proper tension maintenance on the coil strip.

COE also offers the ServoMaster PLUS Controller with a 7.7 in VGA color touchscreen operator interface, streamlined entry of machine set-up information and enhancements to the operator prompts, machine diagnostics, and serial communications to the press controls – all of which contribute to easier use and faster setup. Additional capabilities include production data reporting of feed cycles and material usage, and downloading of set-up data or job number selection.

The multi-axis capabilities of this controller include push-pull, zig-zag and tailout configurations. Auxiliary functions achievable through its Servo Feed automation feature include motorized and encoded passline height control, tailout feed position, table position extension and edge guides, as well as feed roll pressure control.

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