Bending efficiency

Unison Ultibend Industries
Unison Ultibend Industries

Two all-electric tube bending machines from Scarborough-based Unison are helping Ultibend Industries increase the manufacturing productivity of stainless steel tube fittings for the food and beverage processing systems at its manufacturing facility in Wellington, New Zealand.

Ultibend purchased two customised tube bending machines to suit its proprietary manufacturing process; the machines automate the bending of tube fitting shapes such as elbows and U-bends, in sizes from 1/2 to 4 inches in diameter. Manufacturing operations have demonstrated that the Unison tube bending machines have significantly boosted manufacturing speed compared with Ultibend’s previous hydraulic bending machines.

Since installation, the 130mm single stack tube bender has produced 320,912 bends and the 80mm single stack tube bender that works on the smaller sizes has made 558,441 bends. Bends from these tube benders go to projects around New Zealand, Australia and the US, especially dairy factories, breweries, and in some cases the automotive industry.

As the company expanded, it became essential to upgrade the bending process and replace the original in house built hydraulic bending machines with modern, low maintenance and reliable all-electric tube bending variants, using software-controlled servomotor-controlled bending.

“We knew of Unison as we had had dealings with them in the past,” explains Ultibend director Linc Turnley. “We like the fact that being software engineers, Unison could take our ideas and issues and come up with a tailored solution in the form of a customer specific machine. They’re also an ethical company whose values aligned with our own. This has been proved though the exemplary levels of support we have received.”

Describing some of the key advantages with Unison’s solution, he adds: “The Unison software has been invaluable compared to our old hydraulic system. The all-electric servo driven machines give us greater control over bend parameters and increased accuracy and repeatability.

“Data – such as pressure values and mandrel position – is captured and automatically adjusted to the correct position during set-up as opposed to manual adjustments. This gives us the ability to put lower skilled operators on these machines, as doing set-ups and making adjustments is more straightforward. It is also a lot easier and faster to make minor adjustments to the bender settings via a program rather than having to manually adjust threads. This saves us time on difficult products, as we make minor adjustments to get the required quality finished product.”

Ultibend Industries sell their tube fittings to merchants in New Zealand, Australia and the United States which then supply the end user. Its bends are commonly used in wineries, breweries and dairy factories all around New Zealand, California and Australia as well as the automotive and architectural industries in the form of exhausts, other car parts and handrails.

Mr Turnley cites a number of other advantages gained through using Unison’s benders compared to traditional hydraulic machines. These include: higher accuracy and consistency – once a size is set-up, no changes to the bend angle and pressure setting have to be made as they would with hydraulic benders; electric servos increase flexibility – they can easily vary how far the clamps open for loading and alter the loading positions for 45° programs; and importantly, less maintenance. No time spent fixing hydraulic leaks.

In addition, safety features written into the software make the machines much safer than their hydraulic counterparts.

Unison www.unisonltd.com

Ultibend Industries www.ultibend.com

Company

Unison

Related Articles

Powerful cutting edge improvements

Investment by Essex based Young & Woods in the latest laser and turret punch press technology from Prima Power has enabled the company to increase production and find new markets. PES reports.
7 years ago Features

Laser cutting increases through investment

Irish subcontractor Inishowen Engineering, which specialises in sheetmetal fabrication and CNC machining, has reported an increase in laser cutting speed of 20% when processing mild steel sheet up to 4mm thick.
7 years ago Features

Greenleaf tooling directory

Tooling directory covering Greenleaf's metalcutting products in areas including: milling, turning and boring, grooving and profiling, indexable drilling and tube scarfing.
7 years ago Literature
Most recent Articles

Renishaw highlights career pathways in engineering

There is not one singular blueprint that can lead to a career in the engineering industry. It offers a variety of roles, open to people from diverse backgrounds. To highlight the diversity of skills and experiences in engineering, global engineering technologies company, Renishaw, has created the ‘Employee perspectives’ series.
15 hours ago News

Login / Sign up