To give an indication of the importance of material replenishment, a 10 kW BySprint or ByStar fibre laser machine can position its head at 140 m/min and cut 1 mm mild steel at 60 m/min. Depending on the complexity of the component nest, the cycle can be completed in a few minutes and, the smaller the sheet dimensions, the quicker the cycle is finished.
As visitors learned from sales manager Andrew Richert, the main presenter, this is where the associated ByTrans material storage and handling systems come into play. ByTrans systems are designed to integrate with Bystronic laser cutting centres, delivering sheet to the machine's shuttle table and removing a processed sheet in the same cycle. The sheet is either sent to a table for removing parts from the skeleton immediately, or into temporary ByTrans storage, or to a ByTower system for future use.
Established handling solutions range from a simple, manually-operated ByLoader, through ByTrans and its extended variant for loading and unloading sheet, to the latest ByTrans Cross. The latter's modular design offers users full automation for producing long runs of components while retaining the flexibility of manual handling when fulfilling smaller jobs. ByTrans Cross can be integrated between a laser cutting centre and a warehouse, but is equally suitable as a stand-alone solution.
With the addition of an optional BySort bridge and two sorting heads featuring gripper modules, unloading and stacking of components from the skeleton can be achieved automatically and quickly by robot. As the system allows a high degree of repeatability when placing the parts, the consequently reliable position detection assists with the automation of subsequent processes as well.
Another hot topic at the open house was how to extract maximum productivity from the company's press brakes once the fibre laser cutting machines have produced copious quantities of blanks. One facet of the presentation was the high productivity and fail-safe procedures for operating machines like the Xpert 150. The Xpert 150 utilises optical systems and software within the BySoft suite that make it practically impossible to load the wrong tooling or position the segments incorrectly along the top beam.
Attention was also focused on the Xpert 80, an 80 tonne/1.5 m press brake that has been introduced alongside a 40 tonne, 1 m model to form a range that can be conveniently relocated within a factory by fork lift truck.
