Unison Breeze-Revolution rotating head tube bender tackles complex parts in single cycle
2 mins read
Dubbed the Breeze-Revolution, Unison's all-electric tube bender has two multiple-tool heads mounted on opposite sides of a rotating frame. After bending using one or more tools on the right-hand head, the head retracts and a combination of transverse and rotational movement then positions the left-hand head for subsequent bending operations. This changeover can be repeated as many times as required.
The Breeze-Revolution can switch between bending directions much more rapidly than conventional left-hand/right-hand bending machines with their completely separate tool heads, says Unison, shaving a great deal of time from part manufacturing operations. Simultaneous movement of multiple machine motion control axes during bending and head changes, as well as specially developed movement profiles also boosts operation speed. These take place automatically and transparently without any need for programming by the user and help to deliver a machine that can perform combined left/right-hand bending at least twice as fast as the company's previous machine design.
The Breeze-Revolution also boasts further innovations to improve the precision and versatility of its bending capability. These mean that bends with a radius of less than one diameter of the tube can be achieved – even on thin-wall tubing – with the benefit of wiper dies for quality shape forming and control of material flow. The machine also features a long pressure die and a moveable platen that makes it easy to create difficult shapes such as 180° bends in a single continuous and rapid operation.
Unison's Breeze-Revolution tube bender is suitable for the most complex shape-forming applications on all types of material from exotic alloy tubing to mild steel. Continuous automatic operation means that complex shapes can be made in a single cycle, for fast, cost-sensitive manufacturing sectors such as furniture or automotive production where batch sizes can be medium to large. Equally, the all-electric nature of the machine with its software-controlled set-up makes the machine suitable for producing the most complex and precise part shapes in very small batches, as often required in sectors such as aerospace.
The machine's all electric, servomotor-controlled architecture gives comprehensive programmability throughout the entire part fabrication cycle. The position and forces of the tube bending dies can be precisely controlled for highly accurate and high quality shape fabrication and finish.
At the heart of Unison's new Breeze-Revolution machine range is a real-time machine and motion system based on the deterministic Ethernet-compatible Powerlink protocol. A 100 Mbits/second network links all of the servomotor drives required to control bending operations. The speed of the network makes it possible to co-ordinate the movement of the various servomotor axes used during bending – such as the carriage, plane of bend, and clamp roller – more rapidly, allowing Unison to improve the speed of bending.
The Breeze-Revolution also features Unison's major new release of programming and operating software. Among dozens of new and improved features in V10 of its Unibend package is a collision checking capability that helps users to program the machine for new parts. Programming itself, says Unison, can be achieved typically in a couple of minutes by entering new ISO, XYZ or YBC values (distance tube is pushed out, rotation, and degree of bend), linking from CAD or measuring machines, adapting an existing template, or interactively teaching the machine.
Unison can supply the new left-hand/right-hand rotating head architecture on all-electric tube bending machines capable of handling tubing with diameters up to 180 mm (7 inches).
