Maintaining alignment and parallelism is absolutely critical to producing quality tube and pipe product in roll forming fabrication. As roll tooling design and technology continues to develop, we've come to see more machine advancements that allow operators to safely and accurately adjust roll tooling settings and alignment, including standard single point adjustment (SPA). However, Tru Positioning systems take this innovation even farther. In this post, we'll explain the value of Tru Positioning Single Point Adjustment in your roll forming operations.
The Tru Positioning system has all the benefits of SPA, but with the ability to verify and confirm that the roll tooling is properly set at the tolerance of +/-.002”. This means more accurate setting and alignment for your roll tooling. The system has the ability to auto calibrate in the run mode. If any adjustments are required, the system makes the adjustments (via the decision of the operator) and documents the adjustments. Tru-Positioning Single Point Adjustment has the ability to verify and maintain proper roll tooling setting.
This technology, therefore, has eliminated the need for the operator to “feel” the adjustment. Instead, they have positive feedback of the adjustment. All adjustments are timestamped and documented. With the auto calibration feature, the roll tooling will be set properly throughout the production run. The PLC has the ability to save data for different sets of tooling and production runs. These settings can be called up for future use. Proper set up of the roll tooling results in efficient changeovers and reduction of set up scrap. With the Tru Positioning feature, these settings are verified they are set within the tolerance band.
The ability to keep the bottom and top roll shaft parallel keeps even pressure on the bearing blocks. If the system is continually adjusting, this could be an indicator of an issue mechanically with the machine, alerting the operator of the need for machine or system maintenance. An unparallel set of shafts puts more pressure on one side of the material more than the other. This may create quality issues like excessive twist and camber in the final product. The benefit of roll shafts being parallel is that it reduces the chance of the roll tooling to be misaligned resulting in damaged tooling and excess quality issues. Tru Positiong, then, eliminates human error on set ups. All adjustments are made in the safety area of the operator panel. There is no need for tooling setup. The machine can also be adjusted in run mode from the safe area of the operator station, eliminating hands-on contact and keeping operators at a safe distance.