While it’s impressive to talk about leveling steel plate (as sometimes happens when you visit ARKU Inc.’s Cincinnati, OH headquarters) it is equally impressive—more so, perhaps—to level thin sheet metal and small parts. This is where the company’s EcoMaster 12 leveling machine shines, leveling and destressing parts that are from 0.004” to 0.047” thick, and up to 6 inches wide.
It does not take much force to accidentally put a bend in such a part. If you wonder about applications, think of a thin enclosure for electronic/avionic parts, cell phone components, mechanical watch parts, fine meshwork either laser cut or punched, precious metals in various applications—all of these are fair game for the EcoMaster 12. In each of these applications, leveling and destressing are the perfect prep for downstream processes such as further cutting, welding, bending, and finishing.
Depending on the application, the EcoMaster 12’s small conveyor system can move along at speeds ranging from 10 to 65 feet per minute. Even at the slowest setting, you’re able to do 20 small parts in a minute, or more. Additional conveyor setups are available. Also, you can install the leveler completely integrated into a line of machines.
Working the metal
Running the machine is simple. Enter the correct inlet and outlet settings and the throughput speed. Put a blank into one side, take a level, destressed blank from the other side in a second or two. During that second or two is when the work happens. Inside the enclosure, the part is fed between two sets of hardened steel rollers—ten on the bottom, nine on top.
Figure 1 shows how it works. Imagine the red plane is a piece of sheet metal going through the rollers. On the left side, the rollers deflect the metal more than on the right side. Think of a sine wave that fades away to a flat line over a short distance and you’ll have a good idea of how it works. Destressing occurs thanks to being able to initially bend the material close to/past the yield point during the initial bends. Almost all of the stress is taken out of the metal in this process.
Figure 1
The figure shows a “4 high” design. And here’s where we get into something unique about the EcoMaster 12—it comes standard as a “6 high”design. Between the backup rollers and the leveling rollers (the rollers that actually touch the metal piece), there is another set of rollers called the intermediate rollers. (This is available on other EcoMaster and FlatMaster roller levelers but the other models come standard in a 4 high configuration.) The main reason for the standard 6 high design in the EcoMaster 12 is that this smallest member of the EcoMaster family is used in very surface-critical applications. The intermediate rollers eliminate any kind of dirt transfer from the backup rollers onto the leveling rollers, and therefore, away from the material being leveled.
Let’s have ARKU Inc.’s Denis Weinfurtner take us through a brief tour of the inside of the EcoMaster 12:
While it’s true the EcoMaster 12 is a compact machine, it is a workhorse. The thickness capacity is the lowest in the EcoMaster line, and stands four feet high, three feet deep, and including the load/unload assembly, two feet wide. In that fairly compact space stands 880 lbs. of machine. It is substantial. And as long as you play by the rules with thickness and metal types, the rollers will roll for a very long time.
Denis Weinfurtner again takes us through a video, and this time it’s the machine in action. We start with a part that would be hard to imagine in real life. Spoiler alert: it takes about two seconds to go from the letter S to a flat, destressed part. Check it out for yourself:
There are a lot of factors to consider when choosing a processing speed (like part thickness, amount out of level, material, etc.) but from the video you can see it’s a very quick and simple process.
Figure 2 shows the controls of the machine.
Figure 2
On top are the two control wheels that determine the adjustment for the inlet and outlet. The left handwheel adjusts the distance between the first set of rollers (usually set to about ½ to ¾ of the material thickness). The right handwheel adjusts the distance between the last set of rollers (usually set right at the actual material thickness). As for distances between the inlet and outlet rollers, the machine takes care of that automatically. The machine takes care of the amount of deflection on each roller pair in between.
The small numerical screens at the top and left- and right-most ends of the beveled front surface show you those inlet and outlet settings. The red plunger is what you think it is—the emergency stop button.
You control the speed with the rotary dial button to the right of the emergency stop button. The next three buttons below are self-explanatory, and the blue button is to clear any errors. For example, when you press the emergency stop, to clear it you will need to pull the emergency stop first, then hit the blue button to clear any errors to resume production.
This is a stout little machine for the small side of leveling, and it the controls show a commitment to simplicity in operation.
More information: https://www.arku.com/us/products/levelers/