In a few days' time, the experts will once again be flocking to the "wire & tube" trade fair in Düsseldorf. We will also be there, but only as visitors and not as exhibitors. The reason is simple: we would like to present our latest system - but it is simply far too big for the trade fair.

We have been developing special machines for forming wire, tube and strip material for almost 60 years. Among other things, we are specialized in the complex forming of particularly thick wires. The largest plant in our company's history is currently being commissioned in our assembly hall. This machine will take the complex cold forming of wires with diameters of up to 30 mm to a new level.

With a length of 25 meters, the machine has already an impressive size. But the technical details are even more impressive. A total of eight presses and eight bending slides as well as a newly developed special unit have been installed.

The two large servo presses, each with a force of 700 tons and an overall height of 3.5 meters, are particularly striking. If all the forces of the installed units were added together, this would result in a total forming force of 2912 tons in the system.

But that's not all. For the first time, we are not relying exclusively on our proven and fast servo transfer in this system, but are combining it with three fast robots for transporting the workpieces between the stations. This enables us to achieve high cycle rates and short set-up times.  It almost goes without saying that all our units are servo-electric and equipped with regenerative frequency converters.  This helps the system to achieve excellent energy efficiency.

Back to the subject of the trade fair.
It goes without saying that we can't "just" take this system to the trade fair in Düsseldorf for presentation. But we are planning an in-house exhibition for mid-June at which we will be presenting the system. More information will follow shortly.

The start up of our new forming line, which as you know will be the largest in the history of our company, is in full swing.
A formed item made from 18 x 18 mm bar material is currently being fed in.
Transfer, tools and forming stations are being optimized and synchronized step by step. At the end of the process, 20 finished parts per minute will leave the system.
A little background information:
The system is intended for the North American market and will produce various solid cold-formed parts for the automotive industry. The advantages for the customer are variability, a higher cycle output and significantly increased energy efficiency!
In addition to coil material, the system can also be fed with bar material via a decoiler.
Anyone who is familiar with our systems and takes a closer look will notice that there are some special features in the design of this machine.
Typically, we do not use robots in our machine concept, but operate the forming stations with our transfer.
In this case, however, 3 fast handling robots also work on the system.

The major mechanical components of our new system are installed. But nowadays, mechanical engineering is also - and especially - control engineering. Our programmers are already working in the background to inject the system with the necessary intelligence for the forming processes. To ensure that these commands are received, our electronics engineers have already equipped and connected the control cabinets in recent weeks.

The main control cabinet is 5m wide and 2.5m high. It weighs a good 2.5 tons and contains the main switch in size 1000A. This cabinet houses the drive technology for the largest units in the system and offers a peak output of over 1000kW.

Here is some more information for the technology nerds.
Among other things, the two 7000kN presses, one 4000kN press and four 2000kN presses are supplied, and a second control cabinet is also supplied, which supplies a further 26 smaller drives.
For us, it goes without saying that we work with coupled, recuperating and regenerative frequency converters that feed unused energy back into the system so that it is available again for the subsequent processes. This means that very little waste heat is generated and our systems are particularly energy-efficient and environmentally friendly.