TPT January 2018

T UBE M I L L S & R OL L FORM I NG L I NE S

Commissioning of laser tube mill in USA by Japan-based Kusakabe

over many years, in cooperation with customers. This system was installed on the mill as part of the overall quality control system. Major operation data such as mill motor power, current, speed, ECT signals, laser inputs, cut length and defect tracking are processed by the PLCs and recorded by a PC in real time. The system provides immediate feedback to the operators, as well as historical record tracking of the quality and inputs to each pipe, and production data to assist with managing the mill operation. Kusakabe Electric & Machinery Co, Ltd – Japan Email: sales@kusakabe.com Website: www.kusakabe.com

responsibility for the quality and precision of the mill, which is essential for high quality laser welding. Each driven roll shaft on the forming and calibration mills has its own AC inverter motor. This provides the flexibility to achieve a very stable mill speed while distributing the drive load evenly across all the rolls. The cut-off supplied by Kusakabe is a rotary disc type, providing a swarf- free cut-off with only minor surface deformation. The company has delivered more than 20 rotary disc cut-offs around the world, mainly to the automotive industry. Kusakabe has developed a tube mill operation data acquisition system

TUBE mill builder Kusakabe celebrated its 100 th anniversary last year, and has started the next century of operation with the successful commissioning of an automotive stainless steel laser tube mill in the USA. The tube mill comprises strip entry, forming mill, laser welder, calibration mill, cut-off and quality control system. The Kusakabe-designed strip entry section is almost fully automatic – unusual for a laser welding or TIG welding line. The customer selected the automatic entry system to provide a safe working environment and reduce the labour and operational running costs. The laser tube mill was designed and fully manufactured in-house, giving Kusakabe total control and

Advancing roll forming accessories for the Nor th American market

opposing rolls have had no reference to each other in space. The operator has to use time-consuming methods such as feeler gauges or other measuring equipment to get exact setups. Formtek’s latest design, which will be standard across all size platforms on roll forming applications, will utilise mechanical digital counters for both lateral roll locations as well as the height location. This will help the operator to go back to a reference number for setups of multiple products more reliably and in less time. Formtek is a group of long- established companies, each with a history of providing equipment to the metal forming and metal processing industries. As a single-source provider, Formtek supplies its customers with equipment, parts and service in the industries it serves.

Formtek’s newly designed machine

Formtek, Inc – USA Fax: +1 216 292 2898

FORMTEK, Inc, has been working to improve roll forming accessory products for the NorthAmericanmarketplace. One

such accessory is the idle side pass. Idle side passes used in roll forming systems can be difficult to operate because the

Email: yoder@formtekgroup.com Website: www.formtekgroup.com

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JANUARY 2018