Unison's new tube bending machine simulator accelerates the generation of error-free programs for bending tubular parts.
Unison's tube bending simulator includes much more powerful collision detection capabilities.
Unison's updated software is designed for customizing and optimizing bending programs for tubular parts.
Unison's programming software for tube bending machine allows much finer control over the action of the rotary draw tube bending process, including the ability to specify movement speed at many different points on a bend.
Unison has launched an updated software package to manage the tube bending process from programming to production. The company's latest software tools package provides progress in three areas: simulation, machine programming flexibility and data collection.
The software package contains a new version of Opt2Sim, the company's three-dimensional simulator. Opt2Sim is designed to accelerate the development of control programs for all-electric tube bending machines. "Previously a discrete add-on to Unison's Unibend machine control software, the simulator has been completely re-engineered for total compatibility and accuracy of simulation," said a company spokesperson. "It now employs exactly the same embedded code that the machine runs on, ensuring that the simulator always performs in exactly the same manner as the machine, even as new machine control software features are added." The package also simulates the bending of additional tubular profiles such as square and rectangular.
Unison's latest Opt2Sim package enables fully validated bending programs to be created entirely off-line and is suitable for any machine in the company's Breeze range of all-electric tube benders. The new version incorporates a re-engineered collision detection utility, which can be used to avoid and verify problem scenarios including collisions between tube and machine, tube and tooling, tube and the surrounding environment or the tube hitting itself. In this iteration of the software the user is able to select the exact position they would like to view any collision.
Another element of Unison's software package is an updated version of the machine programming and control package, Unibend. "Version 11.3 features significant speed enhancements to both the bending and material handling elements of tubular part programs," said the spokesperson. "New bend cycle software further improves speed by some 5%."
There is also a new TEACH facility giving users access to the underlying machine code for handling parts. This allows machine operation to be micro-managed for additional efficiencies. "All a user needs to do is right-click on the relevant part of any program, and the underlying code is presented in an easy to understand and editable form, allowing rapid changes to be made," said the spokesperson.
The TEACH feature can be utilized to optimize the speed of operation by controlling individual and multiple axis movements including the use of synchronized, parallel movements of multiple axes. It can also be used to slow movement by decreasing axis speed or inserting pauses or stops. In this way, users can fine-tune the standard bending and machine control sequences that the package generates to create highly optimized bending programs. The feature can also be used to allow inspection at an interim stage for example, to slow movements to dampen vibration, to better handle lighter or heavier parts or to position the carriage to simplify unloading. "During use at one of Unison's beta sites for the new software, these features allowed a user to shorten the cycle time for a complex multi-bend tubular part by nearly 20%," said the spokesperson.
Unibend's updated software also provides finer control over the profile motion of the carriage feed and follower axes. "Users can now choose to use up to 10 different movement speeds at as many as 10 different points on any bend, providing immense flexibility to optimize bending programs for difficult materials and bend shapes," said the spokesperson. "This feature is expected to be of particular help for users bending tubes to very tight radii, such as 1D (one diameter of the tube). Such tight bending has become increasingly important in many sectors like aerospace, where there is a growing need to save weight or space while still maintaining a high integrity tubing structure."
The software's database and data collection package can be used in conjunction with the control system's Ethernet compatibility to provide detailed information on machine usage. The package collects, stores and transmits comprehensive information on machine usage such as details on machine actions including start and stop times of bend sequences and the part and batch being worked on. It also collects machine diagnostics information such as error notifications, alarms and emergency stops. This information is made available over the Ethernet network for local and remote monitoring and for connection to an enterprise's material requirements planning (MRP) software. "A local supervisor can monitor tube bending production in real-time, seeing what bending program is being used by any machine and the speed at which parts are being produced," said the company spokesperson. "Higher level management could use the facility to generate reports showing information such as progress with batches and orders, reports showing total output or machine and operator productivity."
For more information contact:
Dale Coates
Unison, LLC
North American Sales & Service Office of Unison, Ltd.
28 Schenck Parkway, Suite 200
Asheville, NC 28803
828-771-0850
dalec@unisonltd.com
www.unisonltd.com