Importance
Wire bender are often necessary in engineering design. It has the ability to create mass customized products from eyeglass frames to intricate artwork on jewelry. They can do an easy and fast job of bending aluminum wires, electrical wires or even some plastic wires that are needed for some specific application. With wire benders, you have the assurance that all the wires will be of uniform size and shape no matter the volume that has to be produced. The job becomes faster, more accurate and precise if the wire bender is integrated with CNC technology. Aside from 2D designs, CNC wire benders have the capability to form 3D designs from prototypes to custom products. With the range of wire applications CNC wire benders have become indispensable for creating wire forms for automotive parts, household appliances, indoor and outdoor furniture and wire-wound resistors.
The technology of CNC wire benders
A servo motor is an important component of a CNC wire bender. Servo motors are not new technology but they are popular for many applications. It is small in size and very efficient. The servos are controlled by sending an electrical pulse of varying widths through a control wire. There is a minimum pulse, maximum pulse and a repetition rate. The servo motor has the capability to turn 90 degrees in either direction for a 180-degree movement. Servo motors used in the CNC wire bender depends on machine size and feeding speeds. The feeding speeds can exceed about 120 meters per minute and bending speeds can exceed 1100 degrees per second.
In some CNC wire benders, the smallest resolution of the wire feeder is 273 pulses per millimeter and the resolution of the bender is 1450 pulses per degree. The accuracy of servo controllers that is usually used is ±1 pulse, length accuracy is ±1 millimeter and pulse accuracy is ±0.05 degrees. The accuracy and repeatability of CNC wire benders are exceptional and they are only limited by the quality and consistency of wire that is supplied. In high volume production, the CNC wire benders can double or triple their production rates with minimal shape distortion.
Depending on the machine configuration, a CNC wire bender can have at least 3 motion axes. A wire is taken directly from a coil, straightened, bent and cut so as to create products that have been designed through software package. The machine also allows automatic programming of flat spiral shapes from a drawing data that has been translated to code. All that the machine operator needs to do is to input the code on a computer and watch the machine while it does all the work.