The first Unison installation in New Zealand, Ultibend purchased two customised tube bending machines to automate the bending of tube fitting shapes such as elbows and U-bends in sizes from 1/2 to 4” in diameter. The Unison tube bending machines have significantly boosted manufacturing speed, compared with their previous hydraulic bending machines.
Since installation, the 130 mm single-stack tube bender has produced 320,912 bends and the 80 mm Single stack-tube bending machine bender that works on the smaller sizes has made 558,441 bends. Bends from these tube benders go to projects around New Zealand, Australia and the US, especially dairy factories, breweries and, in some, cases to the automotive industry.
Says Linc Turley, director at Ultibend Industries: “We knew of Unison ltd, as we had had dealings with them in the past. We like that being software engineers, Unison could take our ideas and issues and come up with a tailored solution in the form of a customer specific machine. They’re also an ethical company whose values aligned with our own. This has been proved in our dealings with them with the excellent support and prompt response to issues we have.”
Describing some of the key advantages to Unison’s solution, he adds: “The Unison software has been invaluable, as opposed to our old hydraulic system the all-electric servo driven machines give us greater control over bend parameters and increased accuracy, meeting standards consistently. All the data, such as pressure values, mandrel position, is captured and automatically adjusted to the correct position during set up as opposed to manual adjustments. This gives us the ability to put lower-skilled operators on these machines, as doing set-ups and making adjustments is more straight forward. It is also a lot easier and faster to make minor adjustments to the bender settings via a program, rather than having to manually adjust threads. This saves us time on difficult products, as we make minor adjustments to get the required quality finished product.”
