AMADA Fixed Height Tooling Technology Saves Time, Extends Use, Ensures Consistency
Hand-altered punch lengths. Repurchase of “sacrificed” punches. Dies that died early. Fundamental changes in business that demanded more speed, accuracy, and flexibility. Mass-customization that demanded fast setups and/or multiple-stage bending.
All these things are important factors in the need to keep pace or move ahead of the demands of the marketplace, and away from press brake tooling of the past. AMADA did so in several ways. Certainly, the popularity of its AMADA Fixed Height (AFH) press brake tooling has shown that the market agrees with the technical direction AMADA took. Every AFH punch is 120 mm high. These punches are hardened and precision-ground to within 0.0008” (0.02 mm). The tooling comes in lengths varying from a long punch of 32.87” (835 mm) to a sectionalized set totaling 14.57” (370 mm) with varying punch lengths and a smallest punch size of 10 mm or about 0.39”.
Compared to older, traditional tooling, AFH tools exists in a new world. Two advantages are evident. First, the old method of having different height punches for different jobs is gone. Now you can stage different types of bends along the length of the press brake without problems made by tooling of different heights. It saves a lot of operator time by avoiding multiple and unnecessary setups. In today’s fabricating game, saving time between steps is golden. See Figure 1 to better understand the difference between conventional tooling and AFH tooling.
Second, modern press brake equipment has safety features like light curtains that prevent injury. If the beam is interrupted, the machine stops. If you have a day where you repeatedly move the meeting point of the punch and die, that means moving the laser safety device too. More time saved—as far as the light curtain is concerned, one AFH position is all AFH positions.
Two approaches with different advantages
Quite literally, the punch is only half the story. If you believe that the AFH punches are precise, durable, and can save you time, you have two options when it comes to dies: the AFH dies and the Common Shut Height (CSH) dies. It is easier to remember the difference if you think of the AFH dies as having a common pass height; the vertical tops of the dies are the same height. In contrast, the CSH dies have the same low point at the bottom of the “vee,” at the vertex of the bend angle (see Figure 2).
To get an idea of the flexibility provided by the CSH dies, see Figure 3. Any punch and die combination can be safely used in a press brake setup to produce complex parts.
Because of the design of each of the systems—pass height vs. shut height as a main differentiator—each method has its own unique characteristics. As for the AFH dies:
- Multiple styles of punches can be staged next to each other in one setup;
- Works very well in stage-bending common material thicknesses;
- It gives the maximum bending speed; and
- It has proven very easy to program because you do not need to enter each tool’s pass height
The CSH tooling also has its own unique properties:
- Different size V-openings can be staged next to each other in the same press brake setup;
- Because of the design, an operator could do 90-degree bending, offset bending, flattening, acute bending, and radius bending;
- Operator safety is enhanced due to the common V-bottoms;
- Requires a 4-axis backgauge for vertical movements when staging different V-sizes in one setup due to die height differences; and
- The slow down position is based on the largest V-die in the tool setup.
A great example of using AFH punches and CSH dies to best advantage can be seen in Figure 4, which shows a simple but effective setup to perform a two-step hemming operation on 14-gauge or thicker materials. It uses a 30-degree CSH die and an AFH acute punch, and a CSH flattening punch and CSH flattening die to hem, all in one press brake setup. The hemming punch is designed to stage next to the 30-degree AFH punch and CSH die.
Both AFH and CSH dies work with AMADA’s Bi-Slide (or Bi-S) probe-style bend angle sensor, an automatic sensor that measures and adjusts bend angles on the fly. Back in Figure 2, on the bottom of the left side, a Bi-S is represented in action. The probes come from in front of and behind the bed, contact the die, and a metallic probe is deployed from each side that together give the angle with great precision.
There are other technical advantages, like V-bottom relief to improve centering and bend accuracy, and the fastest punch holders in the industry. But the biggest break from the past lies in the ability to choose either the same pass height or the same shut height—each method bringing its identifiable advantages to the fabricator of today and tomorrow.