The AMADA KMP 25FT is an AC servo motor-driven panel bender newly offered to the U.S. market by AMADA—the product is made for AMADA by Kyowa Machine (Japan). It is not just an additional product, it is a new category for AMADA, and is probably the most category-building addition since the company added laser welding to its offerings in the last decade.
Let’s get acquainted with the machine. For those unfamiliar with panel bending, it’s quite different from a press brake both in looks and how it gets the job done. From the front view (see Figure 1), you have:
- the dies/bending area
- a manipulator which descends onto the blank or part and moves and spins the part as needed to make the bend(s);
- the front table, which supports the part and has ball bearing rollers on which the part glides;
- the operation panel, where the operator controls the system and does other tasks; and
- the load/unload table, which in our case sits to the left as we look straight on at the front of the machine.
What you cannot see in Figure 1 is the bend beam, the core of the system that makes the bend while the part is held between the top dies and the bottom beam of the bending area. See the photo in Figure 2. If you are familiar with other panel benders, you might be looking for a kind of “C” shape with pointed ends; these ends do the upward (from the bottom part of the C) and downward (from the top part of the C) bending. In this instance, the bending is, in a way, inverted and is a “T” shape on its side, with the downward bending on the bottom part and upward bending on the top part.
From the photo you can see that the slightly curved tips of the “T” are where the bends are made. What this photo also shows is the length of that bend beam, a bit more than the 2.5-meter capacity, meaning 2.5 meters is a true bend capacity.
Another key component that is not obvious from the front picture is the Automatic Tool Changer (ATC) Turret that contains upper dies, which, unlike some other panel benders, can be changed. The change job is done automatically. See Figure 3 for a still photo taken from behind the machine. We will see it in action in a video a bit later.
The wheel rotates and contains two parallel sets of tools. The left half of the wheel (as seen from the rear) has tools on two holders in a row; the third is blank. Note also that the inverted T shape of the holder is the same as the actual working holder on the upper tool set (seen at the upper left part of the photo).
The manipulator consists of framework that supports a movable arm equipped with a gripper that is opposed from underneath the material by a disc-shaped part that follows the manipulator’s exact moves. In doing so, Scott Ottens, AMADA America’s Bending Division Manager notes that the bottom piece the system is built that way, “…avoiding a bend you didn’t intend to make.” In other words, with the force that can be exerted by the manipulator (88 tons, in this case), the top and bottom of the manipulator meet with the blank in between. No vertical force from above is exerted that is not met and compensated from the other side. The design takes away any chance for asymmetrical force that would bend the blank accidentally.
Speed is the thing
Much of the enthusiasm for panel benders is because of speed. The speed comes from several different aspects of panel bending vs. bending on a press brake:
- most of the time, a part is a one-pass operation; you don’t need to move it to another section of tooling or do a major lengthwise bend on some other machine;
- operator interaction with the part is putting the blank onto the loading rollers and taking the finished part off of the delivery rollers;
- the parts move along quickly while they are in control of the panel bender;
- some types of bends, like one of the hinge knuckle bends you’ll see in one of the videos, are easily and naturally done on a panel bender whereas they are almost impossible without special tooling on a press brake; and
- in the case of this panel bender, you can program the next job while the current job is being run.
So what can’t it do? It cannot do thick material. Panel benders are mostly aimed at thinner sheet metal. This makes the potential for its use very simple to identify. Shops that do work for automotive, aerospace, appliances, shelving, doors, furniture, lighting—anything that uses comparatively thin material—are good places to consider a panel bender. The mild steel thickness range is between 1mm and 2.3 mm; stainless numbers are 1mm and 1.5mm, respectively. The smallest x-y size is 15.2 in. x 11.9 in.; the largest is 98.4 in. x 49.2 in. (the long x length is 2.5 meters, disclosed in the product name designation, “25”).
The operation console is easy to use and gives you a virtual, motion-based simulation of an upcoming bend. It shows your material, the dies, the bend beam action, and the position of the manipulator. A separate sub-panel at the loading end of the the rollers allows you to control the start/stop actions and a few other operations. Both this sub-panel and the main panel are close to the load/unload area so that the operator can do these tasks without walking around the machine.
In the case of accessories and automation, or an in-line strategy where the machine is connected to a punch, for example, the finished parts can be offloaded in another direction, say, to the right of the machine. An example of such a setup with a punch press and material storage and automation is shown in Figure 4.
Our configuration
In the panel bender’s configuration at the Schaumburg Solution Center (Schaumburg, IL), the KMP 25 FT is in standalone mode, i.e. it is not connected into a multi-function line of machines and material handling. The load/unload table sits to the left of the machine as seen from the front. You can also unload to the right, but that would be to offload to rollers to another machine or to some type of storage system.
If you are operating in standalone mode, it makes sense to have the loading and offloading at the same place, near the operator console, so that the operator can manage the flow of blanks and parts onto and off the machine.
You can vary the length of the upper tool used in the bending process, varying its size even during processing, if that is necessary to accomplish the job.
An introduction
Our first video is Scott Otten’s introduction to the KMP 25FT panel bender. It’s interesting to note that there is no hydraulic mechanism in the machine. It’s a direct servo drive machine; there are 36 servo motors contained within.
The configuration in Schaumburg is a standalone setup, and you get a sense of how this machine might fit in your own shop. Its footprint warrants the floor space when you consider the speed and automated functions inherent in the KMP 25FT.
Ottens covers a lot of ground in a few minutes, and we come away with some education on the KMP 25FT:
Next we take a very brief look at the operation console with Usa Kanazawa, who hosted the Under the Hood episode on the EGB 6020 ATCe press brake in Spring of 2024. He was our go-to operations man and narrator for several of the segments covering the panel bender.
In this video, Kanazawa starts at the operation console, goes to the loading area, and describes what is about to happen. Then, we bend two parts.
Kanazawa places the part on the loading areas, the lower rollers. As it is drawn toward the front table, it is moved to the front edge of the rollers, where it is pushed to the side by the gauging device, and gripped by two transport grippers. The front part of the table opens a path and the two grippers move to the center of the table and drop the blank off to the manipulator.
The manipulator grabs the handoff and moves toward the bend zone. At one point the manipulator backs away, and two stops emerge from the table so that the manipulator can reset its position on the part. When it finishes the job, we find out that the table area closest to the machine also emerges from the surface to transport the finished part onto the upper roller rack—the unloading area.
It’s a very organized, automated process, and we are introduced to the startup and the motions of panel bending here:
Now we move back to get more detail about the control of this machine, and Kanazawa takes us into a more detailed look at what happens at the operation console. It controls 16 axes—11 axes in bending and five in the front table.
The console is built around a color LCD touch screen. It shows the usual data—tabular information and feedback and programming information. It also shows a very clear simulation of the job you are about to do (you’ll see this bend in a later video). You see exactly where the part is being held, and how the top tooling, the bottom beam, and the bend beam work together to create the bends (which you also see).
The information about the job can come from a CAD file or can be programmed right at the operation console. You can store up to 10,000 part programs there.
Let’s join Kanazawa now for a tour of the console:
As hinted at above, this product would not be this product without all of the automation. One of the main and interesting pieces of automation is one that you cannot see: the Automatic Tool Chnger Turret.
The tool changes happen at the center of the upper tooling. The tools are stored on the ATC (ATC) Turret. In this brief and unnarrated video, you can see just how this is accomplished. (We got this video by having two cameras, one at the right side of the bending area, the other behind the open cabinet of the panel bender. We ask that no one try operating with an open cabinet.)
Here is a look:
Now, continuing on the path of automation, let’s check out the last video. You will see the process unfold just as it was described above—gauging to grippers to manipulator to bend. When it’s time to exit, the conveyor is activated. It has been flush with the front table the whole time, but now rises a few inches to be flush with the unload rollers, where it transports the part. The part slides to the end of the rollers and the operator picks it up.
This process also is unnarrated, and again captured on two cameras:
Concluding…
The panel bender comes in another, larger size, with a 3-meter bending length, named the KMP 30FT. The product is available through the normal sales channels at AMADA. We hope our Under the Hood story has spurred some thought about the panel bender process vs. the press brake process.
More information: www.amada.com/america