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Dual cutting heads, double the production rates |
 Just added to the BW range is a machine with dual cutting heads for increased production rates. Double the number of cuts in one pass.
In response to a customer's request for an economical and compact machine that would cut custom filters from a variety of fibrous and woven materials, Blackman and White's engineering team came up with a dual-head flatbed cutter. Increased production rates from a smaller and smaller footprint has become a cherished target for many companies that are limited in their factory or production space, and do not have the resources to increase their building size. With this in mind, Blackman and White was approached by a low-production, custom filter manufacturer that specialized in the manufacture of hard-to-find or obsolete filters. The aim was to make a machine that could cope with small production runs of custom or one-off filters, but at the same time, be able to maintain a production rate that would allow for extended runs of thousands of filters at a time. To compound the problem, space was limited, so the machine could not tackle the problem by simply increasing the size of the cutting table, or by operating two machines in tandem. Calculations by Blackman and White engineers showed that a dual head cutting machine, the same size as the company's present single-head machine could more than double the production rate. The design called for two identical multi-blade tool heads operating in a synchronized fashion on a single moving cutting gantry. With material lay-up times already quite low, the ability to make double the number and length of cuts in a single pass of the gantry would allow the production goals to be met with no increase in machine size. This solution allowed production rates to be more than doubled with no change in reliability or set-up time. In addition, the machine was designed with an ink jet printing head that labeled the cut components immediately after they were cut. With low production runs and frequent changes in the type of filters being produced, each component is immediately labeled with a unique serial, or part number that allows them to be easily separated visually. The ink jet print head is designed for extended production runs, so small ink reservoirs attached to the print head were not an option. To carry sufficient ink, the weight on the cutting gantry would be prohibitive, and would cut down on the absolute speed and acceleration of the cutting heads. With this in mind, the ink reservoirs were moved to the control console, and the ink is fed directly to the ink jet nozzles via thin high-pressure tubing. This moved the mass of the refillable ink supply from the moving parts of the cutting machine, and ensured that the ink reservoirs could be replenished without having to halt the machine in the middle of a production run. The dual tool heads are identical, and they have a built-in multi-tool capability. To meet the clients need for a cutting machine that could switch from cutting sheet fibrous, to woven cloth type filtration media, the cutting heads each have two cutting blades on their own tangential control systems. The primary head is a fixed blade unit with a hardened tungsten-carbide fixed blade. This is ideal for sheet and fibrous filtration media. The secondary cutting head is a tangential pizza wheel unit that is designed to cut thicker and more coarse woven filter materials that could clog or bind a conventional blade system. Each blade can be selected on the fly by the machine operator, and there is absolutely no down time when switching between blades. A change in production runs takes literally seconds as the new cutting file is loaded into the system, and the correct blade is selected in the software. The blade is immediately deployed as the previously used cutting tool is lifted automatically out of the way. Do YOU have a custom cutting application that we can help with? Contact Us! |
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