Press brakes are essential equipment that helps fabricators to create formed parts, including brackets, enclosures, channels, structural forms, ductwork, and custom projects. You can easily find them in every fabrication job shop and many machine shops. Their versatility allows them to be useful for many applications. They help fabricators and operators bend sheet metals and create new items of different shapes and forms.
It is equally important to invest in good quality machine parts as it is to invest in good quality press brakes. Amada parts, Hypertherm parts, etc., are good examples for buying quality machine parts. Before we delve into the benefits of press brakes, let us define what they are.
What are Press Brakes?
They are fabrication tools that are useful to bend a metal sheet or plate by placing it on top of a die and lowering the punch on it. Then through a defined force by tonnage, forcing the material into the die bends a flange up until it achieves the desired form of shape and angle. And, the press brake controller or operator must account for spring back in the material to achieve the correct angle after the removal of pressure. And after the pressure is removed, the ram retracts back to its position.
There are different types of press brakes, and they are classified depending on the type of generation of the bending force. Different types of press brakes include:
- Electric Press Brakes - Belt driven mechanisms move the ram by applying force
- Pneumatic Press Brakes - Light duty brakes for only the thinnest gauge of materials
- Hydraulic Press Brakes - Hydraulics brakes move the ram or bed up/down by applying pressure
- Mechanical Press Brakes - Drives a force applied via a flywheel
8 Benefits of Press Brakes
1. Reduced Material Wastage
Unlike other machines that use lots of material to make the desired items, press brakes boost high-end precision and accuracy results. In addition, this leads to less waste of materials.
2. In-House Forming Capabilities
If you are sourcing your formed parts from outside your facility, you should use press brakes designed to deliver ultimate accuracy that leads to the production of high-quality products. This reduces rejection rates and customer returns with the increase in precision rate and customer satisfaction.
3. Punching
Suppose you own an application that punches a systematic row of holes in a particular part. In that case, you can easily fit a press brake with an individual punch set or a complete die set for punching these holes out accurately and all in one similar stroke. Press brakes can utilize a large part of their overall bending tonnage for punching applications. In addition, offsetting the punch heights lets you get more punches in a line than before.
4. Hemming
The Hemming process is one of the most necessary operations in almost every fabricating shop. Hemming is the process of folding a small portion of the sheet over and then closing it back on itself to create a thicker, durable, and more rigid edge. It also makes a rounded edge for safer material handling. Hemming is essential in the manufacturing of all types of boxes, panels, and covers. A custom toolset or a simple flat hemming die can complete the hemming process.
5. Complex Forming
Amada Press brake for sale can offer unmatched flexibility and cost-effective solutions due to their forming. Combined with a segmented punch, die sets, acute tooling, and sophisticated controls, a press brake forms even complex multi angle parts with ease.
6. Prototype Forming
One of the significant benefits of press brakes is that their setup and tooling are simple. This makes the switching between applications fairly straightforward. It also makes prototype bedding and forming applications a simpler process. Whether you are proving a part or process out, a press brake is a vital tool that allows the parts to complete without any expensive or complex tooling and complicated setups.
7. Automation
Modern press brakes can be automated for increasing productivity, reducing overall labour cost, and improving accuracy. Manufacturers will be happy to know that the press brakes released into the market have various specialized data ports and also other innovative accessories for facilitating automation. Adding material handling to assist the operator in lifting heavy parts can increase productivity and allow for the same result for each and every bend.
8. Flexibility
Unlike other forming processes like folders, a press brake can bend at an extremely wide variety of materials and thicknesses with a wide window of capabilities.
Conclusion
Press brake parts make it easy to manage machines but it is very important to invest in good quality press brakes for smooth and finished end output. Amada parts are the best option you can choose for machine parts. Also, while searching when you see Amada press brake for sale, you know what to do right?
Many of the newer controlled press brakes offer a vast wealth of information in the controllers. Because when the programming is simple and straightforward, it becomes easy for a shop owner to program a job and run a complete 2D or 3D simulation of that bend with the exact information that provides control on the cycle time and material blank sizes.
