Machine Tool & Automation Group - Trimming and Degating <<<<< Previous Page
| Die casters
see big savings with new automation Baltimore, MD - New Vista Corporation's new totally-automated trim and degate machine (TAD 1000) effectively confronts obstacles that have long hampered the die casting industry. The trimming and degating of die castings is still a hand-fed operation in most plants even where high volumes of parts are produced. This is in contrast to automated unloading of the gates from die casting machines themselves, already a feature in many die casting plants. "Going back a few years, I felt that if we could overcome the obstacles, we could really offer machines that casting companies could use effectively to compete against low-labor-cost offshore competitors," said New Vista President Jack Wickham. Most medium-to-large volume casting runs today are trimmed and degated by a combination of man and machine. Once the gate (casting spray with runners attached) is taken from the die casting machine, a human operator loads and actuates a stand-alone trim press which trims and degates the casting. Sometimes the degating needs to be done seperately. After the trim press opens, the operator removes the castings and the scrap, sending each its separate way. Until now, the human operator was a necessity; a good general-purpose automated trim machine did not yet exist. New Vista, employing break-thru techniques and mechanisms, has been able to reliably automate the process and remove the need for the variable human element. New Vista's machine is usually used in conjunction with a robot, or an automatic extractor, either of which unloads the gate from the die casting machine. The robot places the gate either directly onto the lower trim die of the TAD 1000, or, in cases where a cooldown period is required, the casting is set into one of New Vista's vertical cooling towers. In these cases, the same robot retrieves the gate when it has cooled and then sets it onto the lower die of the TAD 1000. The TAD 1000 then powers the top die to trim and degate the casting, and retract with the parts. At this point, a parts tray moves in under the top die, the trimmed parts are released, and they are sent down a chute onto a conveyor or into a bin. Simultaneously, the scrap is dumped to a separate conveyor. The machine then resets for the next cycle. The entire TAD 1000 cycle takes place within the timeframe of the die-cast cycle. Wickham adds that the TAD 1000 is flexible enough to allow short casting runs - normally all that needs to be changed over are the trim dies. |
