Deep-drawn functional components are increasingly being utilized in the production of medical and pharmaceutical products. To meet the strict standards for manufacturing and quality management in the field of surface finishing, Hubert Stüken GmbH & Co. KG has relied on mass finishing solutions and consumables from Rosler for more than 30 years.
Founded in 1931, Hubert Stüken GmbH & Co. KG is a family-owned business with manufacturing operations at five locations in Europe, Asia, and the United States. Its product range includes stamped and bent parts, plastic-coated components, and complex assemblies.
Rosler works with Stüken Medical, the company’s medical business division which focuses on medical and pharmaceutical engineering, to meet the increasing demand for deep-drawn metal components.
Andreas Hellman, Manager of the ISO 13485-certified business division, explained, “Components used in the field of medical and pharmaceutical engineering must meet strict quality standards. The same strict standards apply also to the actual production operations. For this reason, we have pooled the required know-how for the development and production of such precision components at Stüken Medical.”
As a supplier of mass finishing and shot blasting equipment as well as consumables and service, Rosler understands the need for multi-faceted operations and the corresponding flexibility, cost-effectiveness, and innovation required to be successful.
B+S Metallbearbeitung GmbH (B+S), a job shop based in Southern Germany, also provides various surface finishing services. Its multi-faceted mass finishing operations include deburring and polishing as well as shot blasting, part cleaning, and packaging.
B+S handles a broad range of work pieces with different shapes, made of different materials, requiring different finishes, and coming from all kinds of industries. To create a streamlined and one-stop supplier, B+S chose to work with Rosler for its surface finishing equipment and consumables.
Improved productivity, increased production capacity, better quality, and lower costs—a leading garden tool manufacturer tasked Rosler with developing a new mass finishing system to improve the deburring and polishing of garden shear knives.
Rosler provided a solution in the form of a tailor-made Keramo-Finish® process carried out within a double-batch centrifugal disc finishing machine. Known as the FKS 35.1 A2-So, the system includes fully automatic work piece handling and a two-stage process that deburrs and polishes stamped and laser-cut knives. Work pieces are subsequently dried in an energy-efficient rotary dryer and prepared for the next manufacturing step.
The Situation
For more than 60 years, the Gardena division of Husqvarna Group has developed a variety of gardening products and tools. The company’s broad product range includes innovative systems for irrigation, soil cultivation, and lawn, tree, and shrub care. Gardena products are used in more than 80 countries worldwide.
To ensure easy and simple handling, produce excellent cutting performance, and guarantee long service life, the Gardena’s shear components are produced with state-of-the-art manufacturing technologies. Stamping or laser cutting of the upper and lower knives followed by surface finishing is an important step.
Even if the finishing media and compound/water are managed perfectly, without a well-functioning machine a mass finishing process is doomed to fail. Focusing on a few essentials will ensure that a mass finishing machine is performing as intended.
From machine settings to preventative maintenance and troubleshooting tips, Rosler has the experience and insight to keep mass finishing machines running efficiently.
The Right Machine Settings
The speed at which a machine is running is critical to the success of a finishing process.
If the machine is running too slow, the finishing results, deburring/edge radiusing, surface grinding, etc., might not be achieved at all or only after excessively long processing times.
If the machine is running too fast, the work pieces may be damaged by scratching, nicking, or bending. Excessive speeds will also cause the media to wear much faster without the benefit of shorter cycle times. Beyond speed, other machine settings must be taken into consideration based on the specific machine type.
Numerous functions and calibrations factor into developing a precise and stable mass finishing process. From media and compounds to work piece characteristics and processing times, successful finishing requires each process aspect to be carefully monitored and evaluated. When it comes to process water flow rates, poor drainage from the machine can cause quality control issues as well as equipment damage and costly downtime.
While simple in their function, drains play an integral role in regulating the flow of process water out of the machine. With the exception of intentional “flooding” of the process bowl for sharp work pieces, the same amount of compound and water entering the machine must be flushed out again. Otherwise, contaminants in the form of dirt, media, metal fines, and, frequently, oil will accumulate in the process water. Since this buildup can cause the finishing process to deteriorate and even collapse, mass finishing machines must have sufficient drainage!
With more than 80 years of experience, Rosler can expertly design mass finishing technology and troubleshoot issues to protect your system for the life of the machine.
Made from plastic such as polyurethane or stainless steel material, these drains must allow process water and media debris to be flushed from the system while retaining usable media mix and the work pieces.
Advancements in medical technology now allow for the development of Patient-Specific Implants (PSI). Specialized computer programs analyze x-rays, ultrasound, and MRI images to create surgical guides, tools, and implants tailored to the patient’s unique anatomy.
While still emerging, many medical industry suppliers have received FDA approval for PSI use. Like traditional implants, these implants must be carefully finished once created to ensure the work piece meets stringent medical safety standards while promoting patient comfort and long wear life.
The benefits of PSI use include shorter surgery times, better surgical outcomes, and cost savings.
True to its “apply innovation” tagline, Renishaw’s Medical and Healthcare Division has found great success in additively manufacturing PSI. Using CT scan-to-CAD software, one of the company’s most innovative advances is creating cranial plates using titanium powder.
When determining how to finish the implants to precise medical requirements and surgical demands, Renishaw trusted Rosler for help with mass finishing.
As we have learned during recent world events, outside factors can have a significant impact on your ability to maintain a largely manual process. Though automated mass finishing and shot blasting machinery does require some human intervention, it can often be operated with a minimal headcount and limited human contact.
In previous blogs, we have explored how an automated-first posture can help you to gain significant efficiencies, lower costs, and increase your competitive advantage. We have also looked at the balance between automation and the environment and have discussed ways that you can mitigate environmental impacts of operating automated mass finishing and shot blasting machinery.
We now conclude our Automation Blog Series with best practice examples of automated mass finishing and shot blasting machines Rosler offers and the associated accessories and components available to help in building your next-generation automated processes.
In addition to viewing work piece impingement as an asset, this type of mass finishing also eliminated the need for ceramic, plastic, and other types of media. The only additives required for such part-on-part finishing are water and the respective compounds.
Rosler Metal Finishing designs and manufacturers two machines specifically for part-on-part mass finishing known as WTA rotary vibrators and MK centrifugal disk machines.
The applications and benefits of each machine provide a range of part-on-part mass finishing uses for sturdy parts in bulk. Let’s compare their designs.
WTA Rotary Vibrators
Rosler developed special WTA rotary vibrators especially for part-on-part processing. These machines not only allow running the finishing/washing process, but also the subsequent drying stage in one single machine.
As we established in Part 1 of this series, identifying and maintaining an optimal media mix is essential to realizing optimal mass finishing results. Rosler Metal Finishing understands that our equipment must work in tandem with media to provide you with the desired finishing results.
Understanding how your machine, the work pieces it is finishing, and the selected media will interact is key to delivering an optimal finish each cycle. Doing so requires understanding media consumption factors in order to maintain an optimal media mix.
What are the Factors of Media Consumption?
Media consumption and wear rates depend on ten key parameters. These rates change if even one of the parameters below change. Therefore, quoted wear rates and cut rates are relative values only.
Media usage can only be estimated, the actual consumption can only be determined by the end user under exact process conditions.
Fine-blanking can achieve flatness and cut edge characteristics that are unobtainable by conventional stamping and punching methods and surface finishing adds additional value.
Fine blanking is capable of combining several steps normally required by traditional stamping making this procedure a very time-efficient process. In a single step, fine blanking can produce a part which would normally require multiple operations in terms of man hours and equipment set-ups. Fine blanking is known and is a recognised method for creating component parts with fully sheared crisp clean edges, close tolerances and profile, eliminating in many cases, secondary requirements.
The production of fine blanks can be formed from various metal types of steel, non-ferrous including zinc, aluminum, aluminum alloys, copper and brass for the automotive industry and other industrial sectors.
Many companies keep the important operation of surface finishing in-house and utilise various systems such as rotary vibrators, centrifugal disk machines and waste water treatment systems. The size and shape of the parts as well as the surface finish requirements, determine which type of mass finishing system is required.
To be cost-effective, mass finishing operations for many and various fine blanked parts require the utilisation of different mass finishing technologies.
Shorter cycle times with centrifugal disk finishing
Centrifugal disk finishing systems are ideal for such applications. When it comes to intensive grinding and polishing, centrifugal disk machines are usually 10 – 30 timesmore productive. Their separation system guarantees batch integrity. However, these finishing systems are somewhat limited by the batch size. For example, a batch of relatively high quantity of parts weighing 400 kg require to be divided into several smaller batches.
Typically, for these larger production capacities, a fully automatic centrifugal disk finishing machine which processes the parts without any operator involvement all the way to depositing the finished parts into dedicated parts bins, is an ideal option. The effluent from this centrifugal disk machine can be cleaned with an effluent treatment process centrifuge after which the cleaned water and compound can be recirculated many times, to achieve considerable cost savings.
Alternatively, consideration could be given to a fully automated rotary system and possibly with several small centrifugal disk finishing machines. The effluent from all these finishing machines can be handled by a waste water centrifuge before being recycled. This allows running several surface finishing processes with optimum results and excellent cost control.
Fully automated finishing cell
Do you know the difference between standard rotary vibro bowls and high speed processing?
For the processing of larger quantities of component parts a range of high-speed rotary vibrators is an available option, with superior grinding performance and with process economics in mind.
For the processing of large quantities of component parts
In high speed rotary vibrators, (already in use at numerous manufacturers of fine blanks, stampings, folded or bent, sawn, cold and hot forged component parts), batches of 400 kg can be processed irrespective of whether a batch consists of 10 or 45,000 parts. The performance of high speed rotary vibrators is up to 60% higher than that of standard rotary vibrators which contributes to a quick payback or amortisation.
Click image to watch an automated
centrifugal disk system in operation
Post written by Sandra Banks
Personal Assistant / Digital Marketing
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