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CNC bender.Electric vs hydrolic 1

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doublebend

doublebend

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Mar 27, 2006
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I would like to here pros and cons experiances of electric benders Vs hydrolic.


Current bending needs .075 to 1.75 OD and .028 wall thickness aluminium and stainless some tubes have 8 to 11 bends .
Pros
1. No warm-up time.
2. No need to redo set-up for each production run.
3. More precise/accurate
4. Clean (no hydraulic fluid)
5. Quiet

Cons
1. More expensive for purchase and repair

Questions we have:
- Do electrics make it easier to do dry bending? (using plastic bend dies and no lubricant). This would be a big benefit as we could eliminate the cleaning process after bending (We'd need to outsource the cleaning).

- Are manufacturers reliable for maintenance? (maybe we can negotiate an extended warranty)

- Is scrap rate lower?

Larry



Steve Wolf
Wolfbend LLC
 
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Got a visit from the electric tube bender sales girl, eh?

;-)

It sounds like you're comparing a new CNC electric tube bender to a used non-CNC hydraulic tube bender.

Personally, I think hydraulics get a bad rap because shops that defer or bungle repairs on them just keep adding oil to make up for the leaks, and walk through the mess on the floor, often for years.

You can't defer repairs on an electric machine, because it just stops working.





Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA
 
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Mike,
No sales visits as of yet male or female.
Bending is outsorced and may move in house for some.
So comparison is new hyd compared to new electric
precision bending and no warm up make electric look good
extra upfront cost and repair cost/reliability of electric make us wish to weigh decision carfully.

Eagle has a new 5 year warranty



Steve Wolf
Wolfbend LLC
 
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My limited experience with machinery other than tube benders says:

- It will be about a year before a new CNC machine stops blowing out CPU boards (current record: 7) and other expensive electronic parts.

- In the case of an electric powered machine, the parts subject to early failure also include power driver circuits and ballscrews. They may take extra time to get.

- No generic parts will fit.

- Nobody stocks anything locally.

- Every incident will cost you about a week of downtime:
A day or two to get a technician to show up.
A day to get the part he says is broken.
A day to install it.
A day to get the part he says is _really_ broken.
A day to install it.
A day during which you hold a gun to the tech's head while you watch the machine run.

- The skill level of techs varies. Some will take more than two tries to fix a problem.

- Once the machine is out of warranty, it will become _much_ harder to get a tech to show up. It may require wiring cash to get on the waiting list for the official distributor tech, who is very, very busy. The distributor will have exactly one tech who is worth the money asked, but you get whichever one is available.

- You may be able to find a local tech who will show up the day you call, and fix the machine on the first try. Pay him whatever he asks for, don't let anyone hassle him about his pricing or anything else, and don't lose his number.



Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA
 
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Hello,

Managing a factory in which we have both hydraulic and electric benders, I would definitely opt for the electric.

Apart from the reasons you listed, you must also consider that these modern units often have self diagnostic systems meaning that they are able to precisely outlilne the fault and how to remedy it. With a hydraulic problem, apart from the obvious pumps and tube problems, it is very difficult to determine exactly where a fault has occured.

Admittedly however, it does seem as though the old hydraulic machine we have seems more 'robust' than our electric ones.

For your cleaning issue, can I recommend you trial a water-based and importantly water soluble bending lubricant? Then like us, you will be able to wash the tubes out using little more than pressurised tap water.

In order not to advertise on this site, I shall not post the names of the brands I have experience with - but if you would like to know then please PM me.

JD
 
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I didn't recall any PM options either.
that said.
Questions to Jdarcy and tohers . Can you name a water based lubricant and cleaner to try.

Also after speking with the bending shop at Boeing and doing much research we decided to go with a Unison all electric bender for about $220K.This will be our first machine and we will all be new unexperianced benders and felt it will help our learning curve and be much easier to work with.Whisper quiet and clean too.

Steve

Steve Wolf
Wolfbend LLC
 
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All,

Apologies for the confusion with the PM facility - I was getting confused with a different forum.

Unison do make good equipment - we have 6 of them here in our shop bending tubes of between 1/4" and 4.5" in Titanium, Stainless and Aluminium.

With regards to the water soluble fluids, I have tested two products. These are:

Curtis -
This is an oil based but water soluble working fluid. It is very similar to Houghton CR40 tube lubricant in proncipal but is mixed with emulsifiers. When you wash this down with water, it forms a 'milky' emulsion. The fluid is very thin and therefore not suitable for many applications (on long, complex tubes it was common for the fluid to run out of the tube during the bending process and break a light curtain and thus halting the machine)

The other I am aware of is a company called Irmco -
This is a polymer based range of fluids and gels. The principal here is that the fluid actually thickens as it is 'worked' and so it was found that this stuff actually performed better when we increased the bending speed (!). The products available can be used for a range of bending processes including hot tube bending )we performed a set of trial bends on a 400°C bending operation on 6.5" Titanium tube with great success. Irmco products wash off using nothing more than water and its massive advantage is that you can weld onto it without washing it off (therefore saving us a cleaning operation!)

Let me know if I can be of any further assistance.

JD
 
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With regards to Aqueous cleaners, I can again only recommend ones I am familiar with and have experience using:

Bearing in mind that I am from an aviation background I have experience with:

Ardrox 6333 - Chemetall PLC
Turco NCLT - Henkel
Brulin 1990 GD - Brulin

The Ardrox 6333 is a liquid (which makes dosing easier and does not settle out of the cleaning solution), it is not prone to foaming unless it is used at elevated temperatures (i.e over 80°C).

Turco NCLT is a non-chromated (NC) low temperature (LT) alkaline cleaner that comes in the form of a white powder. It is developed so that it does not foam and is non corrosive to Aluminium, steel, copper and plated products. Unfortunately, in my experience, the powder is prone to settling inside the cleaning facility if it is not used very frequently. This can obviously be a problem with filters, heaters etc.

Brulin is used extensively by Rolls Royce and Boeing it is biodegradable and a far more 'friendly' chemical - you can handle it with little H&S intervention. It contains an in-process rust inhibitor also which is useful if you do not want to introduce inter-operation rust prevention processes.

I can add more if you'd like but these, to my mind are the big players and the ones that are traditionally meant to be good all-round performers.

Hope that helps

Regards,

J
 
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Jdarcy,
thank you ,That all was very helpful information.I am pleased to hear that you have unison benders and bend up to 4.5 inches Titanium as well.Which may be our second machine purchase requierment.

I will share this information and may have some additional questions seeing you experiance level.

Wolfbend is a new method for bending double walled tube and is currently in aerospace fuel lines.We do liscense shops to use our technology.Maybe you would be interested.
Take a look.
What does your shop do?

Steve

Steve Wolf
Wolfbend LLC
 
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Hi Steve,

The shop I deal with produces hydraulic and oxygen pipes and bleed air ducts.

We used to bend 4.5" titanium (1.2mm wall) hot on our hot tube bender but the Unison machines have enabled us to bend it cold.

A word of advice to people proposing to purchase Unison machines - please ask them in advance of purchase if the bending lubricants you propose to bend with will be okay to use on the machines.

We have had problems with bearings seals being attacked by our oils.

This will obviously not be an issue if you are using water-based lubricants, but if you continue forming with hydrocarbon-based 'oils' - then please be aware that 'others' have had problems.

Regards,

JD
 
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Thanks for your input.We have since purchased a Unison 40 all elcectric and are awaiting delivery.

The Water Based lube is somthing we will be interested in looking at.We were told by unision we may be able to dry bend which will save on cleaning.

Steve

Steve Wolf
Wolfbend LLC
 
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