Aluminum Tube Rough Cut Saw
Customer: Kaiser Aluminum Chandler Operations
The Kaiser Chandler Arizona facility draws extruded aluminum tubes to the diameter and wall thickness required by their customer's specifications. The 100 to 120 foot lengths of tube that are discharged from the draw bench must be cut into smaller segments.
Prior to the integration of the Kredit Automation Rough Cut Saw, the operator cut the lengths with a bench mounted cut-off saw and manually moved the cut pieces from the conveyor to the temporary storage cradle. Our rough cut saw system provided process automation for the saw feed and integrated servo controlled cut-to-length gage stops. The conveyor and lateral transfer system then moves the cut lengths into an articulated cradle for temporary storage.
Work Completed:
Kredit Automation & Controls, Inc. designed an automated system consisting of:
- • powered roller feed and discharge conveyors,
• a non-ferrous saw,
• two servo controlled gage stops
• "pop-up" lateral transfer conveyors
• An articulated web cradle for temporary tube storage
• Dual PanelView Plus touch screen displays for the draw bench operators
• Single Ethernet cable trouble-shooting
The servo positioned gage stops ensure accurate cuts. Two gage stops are provided to increase production; one for point cut-off and another for cut-to-length. The two servo controlled stops minimize the servo travel time between point cut-off and cut-to length cuts.
The tubes are moved off the powered roller conveyor via a "pop-up" transfer conveyor that raises between the rollers and moves the finished cut tubes into the articulated web cradle.
The articulated web cradle is a unique design to minimize the potential of damage to the tubes when they are moved laterally off the powered roller conveyor. The web straps are motor driven and lower as tubes are dropped into the cradle. This minimizes the impact of the tubes on each other as they drop into the cradle.
Kredit Automation & Controls, Inc. specified ACSI conveyors, B&O Saws, Bosch-Rexroth linear actuators, servos, and servo drives, Numatics pneumatic cylinders and valves, and the Rockwell Automation Allen-Bradley CompactLogix Processor and PanelView Plus touch screen operator interface.
Programming the CompactLogix processor, PanelView Plus operator interface and Ethernet controlled Bosch-Rexroth servo drives was completed by Kredit Automation engineers. The manifold mounted Neumatics valves are also controlled through an Ethernet connection. The installation is integrated into plant wide LAN via a managed Hirschmann Ethernet Switch.
The installation of the process automation equipment was completed by Kredit Automation in July, 2008.
Rough-Cut saw with servo
positioned gage stops.
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