Clamping and walking beam for automated wire bender

[ALEXciBROWN]

I need tips on how to clamp this 1.08mm diam wire form. The internal bend radii is 1mm. The wire is coming off a coil from the left and straightened then bent one loop at a time. We need to maintain control of the wire at all times because it may "corkscrew" just based on the natural wire straightness. We don't want to have to perfectly straighten just because of the production environment and staff resources.

It needs to be clamped then move to the right one loop pitch and repeated until the part is finished.

Any thoughts?

 

[IRstuff]

Are you showing a side view or a top view?

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[ALEXciBROWN]

this is top view

 

[ALEXciBROWN]

i forgot to mention there are 2 wires stacked on top of eachother

 

[Stick.]

How squirrely is this thing? Do you need to have each loop rigidly held/clamped in something 100% of the time to maintain control or can you just pass it through a narrow gap between two flat plates to stop it from grossly twisting? Any concerns about surface finish or marring the part that would necessitate specific part contact materials and other constraints?

 

[dvd]

Can you bend the wire at the free end, and feed it into a channel with a lid? The lid could be clampable, based on the need.

 

[IRstuff]

OK, so it seems to me that you only need to constrain the 3-4 loops closest to the bender, since it's too late for loops farther way and their self weight will constrain them; so how about a cushioned, flat clamp that covers 4 loops? It would go up/down with the bender mechanism

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[ALEXciBROWN]

So the part needs to constrain each loop I think because both ends of the part get another crimp/die process. We need to know where those ends are. If the wire isn't straightened correctly (which it likely won't be) then the part form will be very squirrely.