Taiwan Spring Machine History

Under the special geographical environment and historical background of Taiwan, each industry has its own unique characteristics. In the last 30 to 40 years, Taiwan ’s mechanical processing industry has made great progress. Under this general environment, spring equipment manufacturing It has also made remarkable achievements.

Taiwan ’s modern spring equipment manufacturer was originally established around 1970. It was mainly based on mechanical compression spring machines, horizontal torsion spring machines and other familiar old models. The characteristics of this batch of enterprises are also in line with Europe and Japan. In the following 30 years, the imitation of related equipment has initially emerged as a rising star, and gradually completed the development and production of mechanical disc machines, mechanical oil seal spring machines, mechanical wire forming machines and other models. Since the late 1980s, major spring equipment manufacturers in Taiwan have carried out numerical control transformation of related equipment, and introduced computerized eight-claw machines (universal machines), computerized spring compression machines, computerized tension spring machines, and computerized torsion spring machines. And computer wire forming machine, etc.-series varieties.

In the above development process, in addition to the imitation of advanced equipment, Taiwan's spring equipment has also undergone a series of transformations of the equipment according to the requirements of spring production, forming its own characteristics. In addition, in the world of spring processing equipment Taiwan's spring equipment has gradually formed the characteristics of "high precision, stable quality, superior cost performance" and other characteristics, and gradually expanded its share in the world market.

At present, there are about 20 manufacturers of related equipment for spring machines in Taiwan. Among them, the equipment for producing spring parts (including wire material forming and elastic parts) is roughly divided into several types: tension, compression, torsion, universal and wire forming. The main products are all The CNC has been realized. Taking this opportunity, the information of the Taiwan coil spring equipment is as follows

1. CNC Compression Spring Machine

The old-fashioned spring equipment, that is, the mechanical coil spring machine is well known to everyone. The mechanical coil spring machine has made indelible contributions to the spring industry due to its simple structure, low price, and convenient maintenance. Spring production enterprises have a large share, but with the emergence and popularization of CNC equipment, the shortcomings of mechanical equipment are gradually exposed, and their shortcomings are mainly reflected in the following aspects:

Wire feeding accuracy / length

In terms of power source, the transmission power of mechanical compression spring machine uses ordinary three-phase / single-phase motor. Compared with servo motors, ordinary motors are characterized by uncontrolled angles. For example, we make a zero-degree marking line on any ordinary motor shaft, and then energize the machine to rotate it. When we cut off the power, we cannot determine how much the motor shaft has turned. With such a power source, it is determined that the mechanical machine cannot achieve high-precision wire feed.

In terms of transmission system, wire feed generally adopts fan gear and electromagnetic clutch / one-way clutch.

On most electromagnetic clutches / one-way clutches and equipment, due to structural reasons, a brake device needs to be installed to ensure clutch separation and equipment, due to structural reasons, a brake device needs to be installed to ensure clutch, to ensure that the line feed is stopped at the moment of separation However, in fact, the brake device cannot do this precisely, and the accuracy is reduced. At the same time, the clutch is often a wearing part of the machine.

In theory, the reciprocation of the sector gear can achieve higher accuracy, but because it cannot meet the two conditions of large number of meshes and single tooth strength limit in a certain installation space, the actual accuracy is low; because of the existence of gear matching clearance, At the same time, many transmission links will cause a large cumulative error, and also reduce the accuracy of wire feeding.

Since the power of wire feeding and forming (outer diameter, pitch, cutting) of most mechanical compression spring machines comes from the same motor, the forming cam also continuously runs during the wire feeding process to form the cutting action, so the mechanical pressing The length of the spring machine plus feed line is also limited, and it is impossible to produce long springs with special specifications. However, there are also designs that use different motors for the wire feed and forming systems. For example, the GS-7 mechanical oil seal spring machine produced by Taiwan Northeast Machinery Factory (Qiao Ding) can achieve unlimited wire feed.

In terms of forming, the mutual constraints of external hydrocarbons, pitch, cutting and other factors, the commissioning work is relatively troublesome, it takes more time to grind the cam, and at the same time it is impossible to debug the complex spring. In addition, due to the simple structure of the mechanical machine and the poor signal processing capability, the material rack, wire and other factors cannot make corresponding actions after problems occur in the production.

After the emergence of CNC compression spring machine, the above mentioned problems were solved one by one.

In terms of power transmission, the CNC equipment uses a servo motor. Compared with ordinary motors, the biggest feature of servo motors is that the rotation angle of the motor can be accurately controlled by a computer. Take a certain computer type 8 machine as an example, the machine power transmission line wheel can achieve an angle change of less than 0.05 degrees under the control of the computer, thereby achieving accuracy to O. Ol-O. 022mm wire feed accuracy control.

All CNC equipment adopts a separate CNC wire feeding system (wire feeding shaft) without exception. The wire feeding length, wire feeding speed and wire feeding start and stop are all controlled by the computer, so the transmission links such as clutch and sector gear are also omitted. , Greatly reducing the cumulative error.

The two-axis CNC compression spring machine has produced a qualitative leap in mechanical equipment. The separation of the wire feed shaft and the forming shaft greatly simplifies the debugging of the machine. The wire feed shaft can achieve any length of wire delivery at any time and at any speed. The Jing cam is also replaced by the universal cam. The trainer can stop the forming axis (x axis) at a fixed position, and at the same time make the wire feed axis (Y axis) rotate to achieve fixed point wire feed. There can also be different ways of matching between the two axes, or the x axis can also be used Reciprocating in the production of complex springs. More importantly, the numerical control equipment has realized the automatic programming function, and the complicated labor of grinding the cam can be replaced by only a few keys.

In addition, due to the application of the computer, the machine can control other fault phenomena such as wire faults and material rack faults, and add many detection functions. It also makes the perfect combination of advanced equipment such as inspection machine and machine possible, which makes the production of compression springs enter a new era.

After the development of two-axis equipment became hot, people have developed three-axis, four-axis, five-axis and multi-axis compression spring machines in pursuit of simpler debugging, higher accuracy and more powerful functions. The four-axis machine adopts four independent shafts, such as wire feed shaft, outer diameter shaft, pitch shaft (shared by insert knife and push knife) and cutter shaft, which are controlled by four different servo motors. The debugging convenience of the spring machine is more prominent, and the functions are also increased accordingly, which can realize the functions of twisting (breaking), swinging (rotating) and so on.

Recently, Taiwan Ziruixing launched a five-axis compression spring machine. The five-axis machine divides the pitch insert and pitch pusher into two independent axes on the basis of the four axes, thereby solving the four-axis and two-axis The transmission path of the pitch pusher in the machine is long, and the cumulative error is relatively large. Recently, there are also designs that divide the two curve gauge slides into two different shafts, but no formal product has been formed yet. The comparison table of the performance characteristics of the compression spring machines with different shaft numbers is shown in the table-.

The manufacturers of Taiwan compression spring machines are (arranged by strokes): Qianshan, Youhui, Guanghong, Ziruxing, Hedong, Xinda and Xindongzhen, etc. The processing wire diameter can cover 0.10-20mm.

Second, CNC eight-claw machine (also known as universal machine, multi-station machine)

Early production of special-shaped springs, tension springs and complex torsion springs has been carried out by semi-mechanical, semi-manual or even all manual methods. How to use machines to achieve efficient one-time forming of complex springs to improve production efficiency It is a headache for spring manufacturers. After the emergence of CNC eight-grip machine, this problem has been solved very well.

Any complex spring can be decomposed into four basic structures: circle, arc, angle and straight line. The biggest feature of the CNC universal machine is that the above four structures can be combined arbitrarily through the cooperation between the different axes of the machine, making it possible to form complex springs at one time. On the universal machine, we can easily form compression spring, tension spring, torsion spring and various shaped springs.

Taiwan's numerical control universal machine first appeared in 1988, initially mainly with two axes. Among them, the wire feed axis (Y axis) is specially responsible for wire feed, and the forming axis (X axis) is driven by another servo motor through cams to eight star-shaped slides, and then the slides are equipped with different tools to achieve the wire Winding, bending, folding and cutting. In the following more than ten years, it has gradually developed from two axes to 13 axes, which can be divided into rotatable and fixed mandrels, rotatable and non-rotatable lines, cam type and camless type (fully numerically controlled), fixed slide There are four types of movable slide seats, among which the cam type is divided into cam direct drive and lever drive, and the non-cam type is divided into axial feed and eccentric feed.

The mandrel of the two-axis universal machine is fixed. In actual production, the bending deformation of the steel wire often interferes with the mandrel itself, which affects the formation of the spring, so it is often necessary to grind the mandrel into different shapes to match the production when producing different types of springs, which directly causes The commissioning time is long, the mandrel is easily damaged, and the cost of the tool is high. In order to solve such problems, people have designed a third axis, that is, a rotating axis.

The rotation axis (R axis) is driven by a separate servo motor, which can be rotated at any angle within the circumference, and its accuracy reaches more than 0.09 degrees. This rotation function overcomes the above shortcomings of the two-axis machine. It is relatively simple to debug and the tool cost is reduced. Later, people designed a curling shaft (s-axis), which is a kind of adding a curling motor to the sliding seat to make a more complicated spring.

During the debugging process, people found that each slide requires a cam to drive, and the accurate adjustment of the phase of the convex stem is a very troublesome thing. At the same time, the stroke adjustment of the slide and the special cam grinding in the production of special springs are also very difficult. A waste of time. In this context, Taiwan has a fully numerically controlled (no cam) universal machine.

The so-called fully CNC universal machine is to divide the eight forming carriages into eight different servo motors on the basis of the universal machine mentioned above. The commissioning personnel can instruct the computer to instruct any one of the carriages at any time to set The fixed speed moves forward and backward. This is a revolutionary advancement of the universal machine, which minimizes the mechanical debugging part. The time for grinding the tool and adjusting the cam in the past can now be easily achieved by simply modifying the parameters on the computer.

The eight slides of the universal machine that are common to everyone are adjacent to 45 degrees, which can be fine-tuned. However, some manufacturers have also introduced movable slides. Commissioners can arrange the slides at any possible angle to make debugging more convenient.

Recently, manufacturers such as Keli and Xinda have introduced universal machines that can be turned into lines. Regardless of whether the traditional universal machine can turn the core, the steel wire itself does not rotate, so that the same corner knife can only be folded at the same corner of the plane, and cannot form a three-dimensional space angle. The rotary wire universal machine has an independent servo motor to control the steel wire for 360-degree precise angle rotation. In this way, a tool can wind and bend the steel wire in different planes, and the forming function is stronger. Taiwan ’s universally machined wire diameter can cover 0.2-7.0 mm. The manufacturers are (arranged by stroke): Keli, Guanghong, Northeast (Qiaoding), Hedong, Xinda and Xindongzhen.