Recent demonstrations of all-electric, CNC tube bending and forming machines showed how easily such machines can be set up and programmed

BLM GROUP UK recently held its InTube exhibition to show the ease with which the company's CNC tube bending and tube forming machines can be set up and programmed. Talking about the five-day, in-house show, Paul Lake, managing director, said: 'The success of InTube means that a similar event focusing on tube cutting and profiling is now scheduled for later this year'.

Under the banner of 'Experience Electric' visitors were able to see demonstrated several models of all-electric bending and forming machines, with input from experienced application engineers highlighting the advantages of ultra-precise movement and positioning in all axes.

The BLM E-TURN, for example, allows up to eight different bend tools to be mounted on a bend head capable of rotating through 180 deg.

This enables the machine to switch automatically between left- and right-hand bending in the same cycle.

Also in action was the BLM E-BEND, developed specifically for applications where batch sizes are small, expensive material is being processed and bends are highly complex.

The all-electric technology of both machines is controlled by VGP 3D visual programming and simulation software that dramatically reduces set-up times and component wastage.

This proprietary software also controls the BLM Dynamo CNC tube bender, which is ideally suited to the five-axis bending of complex components with different radii and tubes with pre-assembled fittings or endforms.

These endforms can be easily produced on a BLM AST tube end forming machine available with a wide range of tooling configurations and capable of being directly integrated into a manufacturing cell. 

http://www.manufacturingtalk.com/news/blm/blm122.html