Neff Press Custom Applications: High Speed Stamping

Final Product: Medical Device

Our Mission: Our customer, a medical equipment supplier, located in the Midwest approached Neff Press to design two 15-ton high-speed hydraulic stamping presses. The platen dimensions were 20" x28" in between the pins and were nickel plated for anticorrosion purposes. Neff designed the hydraulic power unit around a special long lasting single stage pump (9.4 GPM) with a 20HP electric motor. Neff designed the press with a special RexRoth directional valve, which could tolerate the high flow rates required in this application. A positive stop cylinder was supplied for position control and to generate higher speeds. Eventually, both of these presses were integrated with a roll feed system.

The customer required a remote power unit (on casters), and control enclosure. All hydraulic connections from the power unit (3 total) to the crown of the press were to be quick disconnect. The electrical connection, both main power supply and the control wiring were integrated into a mixed power connector to make changeover and maintenance time minimal. These presses can be disconnected from the main control enclosure and the power unit, and another power unit/control center back on line in less than 2 minutes. The presses were designed to run (3) 7-hour shifts, 7 days a week.

This customer had bought two similar presses from Neff over 8 years ago and came back for this second application. Neff designed the new presses to achieve 100 Strokes Per Minute, with a ¾" total stroke and ¼" of it being full tonnage (higher speed presses are available). These presses replaced mechanical presses that were not producing the required part quality. Neff's hydraulic presses and the unique control of hydraulic presses offered this customer higher overall productivity.

Final Product: Retail Security Tags

Project: Special 100Ton C-Frame Press
Glass Scale Linear Transducer
4-Post Guided Tool Mounting Plate
Special Omron Electrical Controls

Our Mission: The customer, a world leader in supplying security systems and products to the retail industry required a press that would be easily integrated into their automated cells. Communicating with a Robotic pick and place unit, vision system, and a staging index unit, were criteria for the controls on this press.

The solution is a very large, specially designed 100ton C-frame press with design features including extended daylight, extended throat and extra stroke. The press had a deflection of .0002" per inch of throat (press had 16" of throat). The customer had a large precision die that had clearance of .001" between the upper die shoe and the lower shoe. The press is also equipped with an oversized four-post guided tool mounting plate to accommodate the large tool that the customer runs in the press.

The hydraulic unit was designed with Neff's standard 50 horsepower dual stage regenerative hydraulic circuit to achieve the cycle rate required. Neff's press performed a 14" total stroke, with 2" of work in 2.9 seconds (higher cycle rates are available).

An Omron C200H PLC, Omron remote I/O, Heidenhain glass scale, and other critical components were in an oversized electrical enclosure.

Two certified Neff Press Technicians provided rigging support, start-up and integration services for this equipment. The press was designed to simplify the integration process as much as possible and the success of this project is proven with our South Florida customer's recent purchase of their seventh press.

Our Mission: Our customer, a global (Fortune 50) consumer products supplier, needed another “High Speed” 40 ton 4-Post press to stamp security tags. It was critical that the press be accessible on all four sides for other automation and scrap removal. A robot would feed the press from the front, roll feed would flow right to left, and scrap removal would occur on the backside of the 4-post press. Because of shipping container criteria and height restrictions at the Pacific Rim facility the power unit could not be crown mounted.

The Solution: Neff supplied a H40-30M hydraulic 4-Post press with several unique criteria. The bed size was 33” L-R x 33” F-B with 30” of daylight. There was a cut-out in the bottom bolster for a vision system to be mounted. For access and height restriction reasons, Neff positioned the reservoir underneath the bottom bolster and it was shaped like a horse shoe to give access to the vision system. The power unit (motor/pump assembly) was mounted externally (upside down) to give full access to all four sides of the press. This was critical for the customer and their peripheral equipment that was integrated (feed system, robot, vision system, and scrap removal).

The press was able to complete a 12” total stroke, with 2” of work in 2.9 seconds. Our special 30 HP power unit generated ram speeds in excess of 1200 IPM. Neff included a special hydraulic pump and valve package that nullified the shock created after blanking the product. The springs in the customer’s tooling created a significant load just after blanking the product. Neff designed a special decompression hydraulic circuit and timing sequence to solve the problem. In addition, this customer required an Omron PLC (C200H Series) and several other brand specific components for part consistency for the entire work cell. Neff has serviced this customer throughout the world at their various manufacturing facilities.

Our Mission: The end customer, a snowmobile manufacturer needed a high speed press with a unique frame to rivet and stake the tread on snowmobiles. Neff designed the frame as an “E” style to allow loading from the front and the 10 ton rams would actuate from the bottom and top during the application. The press needed to have access for a conveyor running front-to-back. They requested a separate hydraulic circuit to control die clamps and a hydraulic motor which ran peripheral automation. Lastly, the press needed to complete a cycle (both rams travel 2”, with .3” of work) in less than 1 second.

The Solution: Neff supplied a Special “E” press with guided platens on each cylinder. It had 15” throat, 18” of daylight in each “C” opening, a 7 ¾” pocket in the center section and a cut-out in the back plate for conveyor access. The power unit was a special 10HP high speed system with a separate hydraulic circuit/manifold to run the die clamps and customer supplied hydraulic motor.

100-Ton STAMPING PRESS
Servo Ram Control
Electronic Speed & Tonnage Control

Final Product: Magnets

Our Mission: Neff’s customer, a specialty stamper, required a press for a high speed precision stamping application. The customer needed a press that could precisely stamp magnetic material. The total ram travel distance for the application was ½” and necessary repeatability was .005”. The customer required 60 cycles per minute in continuous mode to meet their production target.

The Solution: Neff supplied a 100-ton four-post column press with our Servo Ram Control system, and proportional valving for electronic speed and tonnage control. The press was controlled by an Allen Bradley SLC 5/05 series PLC via a PanelView 600 MMI and equipped with a load cell, linear transducer and servo valving to provide stroke repeatability to customer’s .005” specification. The PLC could also accommodate up to 99 job recipes for customer’s various different parts.

Neff also provided hardware and programming to integrate the press with customer-supplied roll feed.

Neff has over 40 years of experience manufacturing, engineering and integrating industry standard components to solve customers manufacturing needs. Contact Neff Press at 800-325-8612 for further details on this application or on many others.