In roll forming and tube mills, especially when operating at high capacities, ensuring precise design, setup, and operation of machinery and equipment is crucial to quality, productivity, and profitability. Misalignment in the machine, on the other hand, leads to multiple fabrication issues and product defects. In order to maintain accuracy in the roll former or tube mill, proper alignment and setup adjustments are necessary, but getting these "just right" can be difficult to replicate with precision. In most cases, the solution to roll forming and tube mill alignment issues is regular maintenance by trained technicians or original manufacturer representatives.
Laser Alignment Service to Reduce Tooling Damage
When roll shafts or spindles are not parallel, technicians will begin to notice double tracking of radii, scuffing on one side of the part, excessive amounts of bow due to stress, and increased setup times. Many of these defects could relate to improper tooling setup.
In order to alleviate these issues, laser mill alignment improves setup conditions and reduces tooling damage which leads to low-quality output. Laser alignment allows for tighter alignment tolerances than manual adjustment, generally within ±.0005”. A laser is extremely helpful in the areas of high tolerance roll forming for such products as drawer slides, seat tracks and other rail type products.
At Formtek, our team of highly-trained laser alignment technicians are available to handle all major alignment procedures for new and existing mills, including identifying and correcting alignment anomalies. Our laser mill alignment technology can dramatically improve the performance, lifetime, and throughput quality of your equipment in approximately one day.
Roll Stand Rebuilds to Maintain Original Tolerances
As machinery ages, its components might wear down past the point of maintaining the required tolerances to meet demand. Especially after repeated misaligned use or improper setups, even newer components can become worn and ineffective. In these cases, a rebuild or retrofit service replaces these components, potentially adds upgrades, and can return machinery to like-new condition.
Formtek's rebuild solutions are designed to help improve functions of the roll forming line. Existing installations are rebuilt to take advantage of new technologies and high-quality replacement parts. Rebuilding and retrofits often come with a smaller upfront cost of purchasing a new machine to replace the inefficient one. By rebuilding existing machinery to like-new standards and tolerances, fabricators can avoid downtime and extend the life of their tooling.
Single-Point Adjustment Upgrades for Efficient Roll Settings
Single point adjustment (SPA) is a machine feature that allows the operator to adjust the roll stand from one point, moving the top shaft up or down while keeping the roll shaft parallel to the bottom roll shaft. SPA allows for roll tooling settings to be documented, making future setups very repeatable, which speeds up the gap adjustment and enables setup repeatability.
Many Formtek roll formers and mills offer single point adjustment as a feature. For existing customers as well as owners of non-Formtek brand machinery, Formtek offers single point adjustment upgrades that allow existing installations to take advantage of SPA's increased productivity benefits. Formtek's Tru Positioning systems take this innovation even farther by allowing for roll line monitoring of roll settings and auto calibration in the run mode.
Implementing Machine and Tooling Maintenance Programs
To improve a team's ability to maintain roll formers and tooling setups properly, many fabricators will benefit from offering operator maintenance training and a proper tooling maintenance program. Machine operators act as the first line of defense against machine failure. Having a preventive maintenance program for every facility is important for preventing failures that threaten productivity and profitability.
Training operators to properly set up tooling and maintain components leads to more consistent machine operation. Additionally, a consistent process makes it simpler to identify what might be causing production bottlenecks or loss of quality. A well scheduled and designed preventive maintenance program should keep equipment running at peak performance and extend the life of tooling and machinery.
Misalignment in roll formers and tube mills adds unnecessary wear and tear on tooling during every production run. There are several strategies for managing setup and alignment in order to produce consistent results and profitable production, including laser alignment, machine rebuilds, single point adjustment systems, and proper training and maintenance. Having a plan in place for evaluating alignment and wear is crucial to improving the performance and longevity from roll tooling.