How To Select Bar Feeders

الخميس، 1 أكتوبر 2015

By Sheba Kreig


A bar feeder is the workshop equipment that undertakes the task of automatically feeding metal bars into CNC milling machines. Those types of tools are used to increase the productivity of a workshop and allow CNCs to work unattended and during the night or weekends.

Bar feeders can be connected to a CNC for automated control, or can be set to feed at a specific rate, depending on the application. They can hold many bars on their magazines and feed them to the CNC one by one. Modern bar feeders have the capability to detect if anything is wrong in the process and essentially stop automatically.

Consideration when selecting bar feeders

There are many different bar feeder models in the market today, offering different production qualitative and quantitative characteristics. As these machines are destined to work together with CNCs, compatibility and sizing are especially important when considering buying one. Here's a list with the most significant factors to consider before making a bar feeder choice:

Magazine Size Needs

The magazine size indicates how many bars of a specified diameter can be held in the bar feeder's storage chamber. This, combined with the feeding rate essentially gives out the hours of operation of a bar feeder before it required bar refilling. Although this may vary depending on a workshop's needs, a minimum operation of at least eight hours is generally suggested.

Part and Spindle Lengths

Is the part that you want to mill long or short in relation to the maximum bar length that the feeder can hold? How many finished workpieces is a bar going to last for? What is the length of the bar that will be held at the spindle? These are the kind of questions that a buyer needs to answer before figuring out the production efficiency of a bar feeder with precision. Sometimes, a buyer will have to spend quite some time calculating all possible configurations for a bar feeder, but if a workshop produces specific workpieces at known length, the time and effort to take those into account are worth it.

Safety Mechanisms

Bar feeders are machines that are left to operate by themselves for many hours, or even days in some cases. For this reason, they should boast advanced safety features that ensure their good operation while workshop personnel is busy doing something else. Some of those features could be sensors placed in key points, load measurement equipment, and infrared beams that check the position of the bars. Modern bar feeders can even have webcams used for remote monitoring.

Floor Space Needs

Workshop floor area is almost always challenged by the large pieces of machinery that are operating inside, and bar feeders are a classic example of this problem. Those machines are fastened securely on the one side of the CNC (spindle side), and they are generally long enough to hold relatively long bars. The size of the bar feeder should be considered in order to make sure that there's enough space left for the bar loading crane to maneuver into position and load new bars to the machine, and also for service technicians to perform regular maintenance work on the machine.




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