Power Machinery retro-upgrades Eliott Engineering’s CNC systems
One of Australia’s oldest heavy engineering companies has shown how simple control system upgrade can completely revamp its huge automated press brakes.
Eliott engineering covers job requirements from small sheet metal work (using turret punch and small press brake) through to heavy engineering for railways, mining and power generation.
Eliott engineering turned to its machine supplier, Power Machinery , to retro-upgrade the Computer Numerical Control (CNC) systems on its large press brakes.
Eliott Engineering’s has several Ursviken press brakes bought through Power Machinery, but after 13-15 years their Cybelec controls were slightly outdated while the machines were still in top shape.
Managing Director of Eliott Engineering, Anthony Eliott, says by retrofitting new, modern control systems it has made the units almost like new machines again and has heightened their performance.
“Ours is one of the biggest fabrication shops in Melbourne and we are using quite a few Ursviken press brakes and want to retain this excellent technology for as long as possible,” said Eliott.
“Press brakes of this capacity are a significant capital purchase. We are aware that a control re-fit is not always suitable, but Power Machinery showed that in this case on these machines it certainly was.
“Ursvikens have a long lifespan, so to get the latest control technology for a small cost and update the machine’s performance and flexibility is a very positive result for our business.
“The control retrofit is excellent proof in the field that implementing this type of upgrade works well with the Ursviken machines.”
The large machine controller upgrade took place over a period of six months on four machines, keeping machine downtime to a minimum.
“It would be unprofessional of us to wait until a machine completely dies; these retrofits are all part of our step-by-step planning which is a much better approach than crisis management.”
Press brake machines in service at Eliott Engineering include:
- Ursviken 1600 tonne x 9.5m
- Ursviken 640 tonne x 6.1m
- Ursviken 200 tonne x 4m
- BBM 640 tonne x 7.6m
- Kleen 750 tonne x 6.6m
- Farina 200 tonne x 4.1m
- Imal 100 tonne x 3m
- Pearson 300T x 5.3m
- Hydrabend 200T x 4.9m
“With machines like this at our disposal, we are always going to win big contracts but if you run into control system problems it can cost you the job, so reliability is key,” said Eliott.
“In addition, our line up is dominated by the Ursviken brand because we thought about what we need and in what direction we wanted to head, this brand seemed to be the best option for our type of work. . Most of our work is large and heavy, the Ursvikens are built for that.”
Managing director of Power Machinery, Ken Christensen, says there is a growing list of companies actively pursuing the option of control system upgrades to gain more lifespan from metal working machinery.
“Very few companies can realistically afford to upgrade their machinery stocks every few years,” said Ken Christensen.
“So our service technicians are able to first of all identify if a machine can undergo a control upgrade, they identify what type of control upgrade would be suited to the end user, and then we go about organising this quickly and accurately.
“Ever since metal working machinery had the ‘manual’ element taken out of it, it has made the CNC system the true focal point of the operation,” said Ken Christensen.
19-May-2008