With the BT and BMS series, the long-established company WAFIOS, based in Reutlingen, Germany, is setting new benchmarks in the production of complex bent parts and frames made of wire. Conventional areas of application are the bending of all wire elements such as those found in vehicle seats, office and upholstered furniture, but also in white goods. The machines typically produce seat insert wires, seat structure wires, zig-zag springs, lumbar supports or frame elements for shopping trolleys.
Consistently developed over the years, the CNC dual-head bending machine BMS 50 for large wire diameters up to 10 mm recently celebrated its trade fair premiere at Wire in Düsseldorf, Germany. The BMS 50 impresses with a modular and well thought-out overall concept for high wire diameters and strengths. The economic efficiency is achieved in particular by the high machine output, which results from the interaction of various factors such as the rotating straightening system, the highly dynamic bending heads and the optimized control. On request, the machine has been equipped for the first time with the newly developed solution for in-line, double-sided chamfering of the straightened rods before the bending process. The BMS 50 can be used for the production of complicated geometries thanks to the CNC-controlled rotary gripper that features a large bending clearance and enables the bending of short center sections. High precision and quality is guaranteed by the highly dynamic, servomotor-driven rotary straightening system in interaction with intelligent software, such as iQsmartbend. As a result, the current series achieves significant increases in performance compared to the previous models, which shortens the amortization time for the system investment.
Economic efficiency is also defined by versatility. Thanks to an additional CNC-controlled axis, BMS machines equipped with an off-center displaceable bending head have an increased range of parts that can be produced. The BMS can be supplied in two versions, either for bending from a coil or for bending cut-to-length rods from a magazine. The operating range for up to 4-meter-long rods allows the production of large components, such as wire frames for agricultural use or heating conductors from prefabricated material.
In the conventional double-head bending machines of the BMS series, the bending heads operate synchronously on the same plane, which ensures a high output of symmetrical components. To achieve a similarly high output in the production of asymmetrical bent parts, WAFIOS has developed the CNC-controlled BT multi-head bending machine. The decisive feature of this series is the synchronous operation of the bending heads even with asymmetrical bent parts. However, with asymmetrical bent parts, often only one bending head is used, which can lead to a reduction of the production rates. In contrast to the BMS, the core feature of the BT series is bending heads that can work both synchronously and asynchronously, thus ensuring the highest production rates.
CNC multiple-head bending machines from WAFIOS in the BT series are particularly suitable for the production of three-dimensional bent parts with complex geometries made from source material on a coil. Technically equipped to a high standard, the high-end machines offer three different spinner sizes which enable optimum adjustment with regard to the straightening result depending on the wire diameter and wire quality used.
Both series are equipped with the high-end WAFIOS Programming System WPS 3.2 EasyWay . Quick generation of programs is achieved by reading in STEP and IGES files as well as geometry-based programming of parts. Several process optimization functions are available on request, such as...
…iQwire for simulation of the bending process with integrated collision monitoring and determination of cycle time
…iQconvert for the automatic conversion of CAD data to WPS geometry programs
…iQinspect for the automatic correction of bent parts by means of an external measuring device
…iQsmartbend for quality and performance enhancement through automatic optimization of bent parts.
With the BT and BMS series, WAFIOS has a machine program that covers a very wide range of components for the economical production of symmetrical and asymmetrical bent parts for many areas of application. Thanks to intelligent software solutions, WAFIOS wire bending machines work efficiently, reduce set-up times and improve the quality of the components.