World’s first fully automated duct forming machine

Ducting for heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) is a hugely important global engineering industry. With the help of Omron Automation, UK producer of duct manufacturing equipment Firmac has engineered a fully-automated line rated by the supplier as one of the most sophisticated applications of its NJ controller in Europe.

Omron engineers helped to select the hardware solutions and integrate the entire control system. Their role was central to the success of the project, working on ways of replacing pneumatic and hydraulic actuators with alternatives controlled and positioned by servo drives,

31 axes of motion

The Omron NJ machine controller was the obvious choice for this application. The complex motion requirements across 31 axes, integrated inverter control, along with the wide spread IO network meant the built-in EtherCAT was ideal network to accommodate all these requirements. Less time-critical devices, such as the machine HMI’s, were connected on the integrated Ethernet/IP network. The traditional solution would have meant the use of a PLC with a separate motion controller.

The principle servo drive used is the Omron G5 range. As well as the NJ controller, MX2 inverter drives and the NS human-machine interface (HMI) are also sourced from Omron. Omron’s Sysmac Studio programming platform provided the ideal tool to combine together all aspects of the machines software development across the 60m2 line.

Once galvanised or stainless steel coils have been manually loaded onto the machine’s coil holders, the automated process can begin. One of the main design goals was to produce a duct without any manual intervention. Entire processes, from machine setup to forming, folding and seam closing, has never before been automated to this degree says Firmac.

The machine controller receives job data from an external networked computer system, after which the required coil is automatically selected and fed into the machine. Servo-driven side-guides measure the coil width (which can vary by +/- 5mm) and communicates those settings to all the other machine operations: levelling, pleating, notching, roll-tooling and folding.

Machine setup times are reduced further by the ability to set sections of the machine independently. For example, while the roll tooling and folding section is busy, the infeed can be changing its setup and also the coil selection to suit the requirements for the next job, all without interrupting production.

Plasma cutter

Other firsts attributable to the use of NJ machine control include the integration of a plasma cutter and a five-axis robot arm into the machine. Use of the cutter to create holes and access panels avoids the need for an additional, time-consuming manual process. The robotic arm supports the ducts whilst they are being folded, duct sizes can vary from anything between 150x150mm up to 2000x2000mm. It also aides the mating of the male and female joints for seam-closing, before removing the finished duct from the machine.

Firmac set out to make the most advanced, intelligent and automated duct-forming machine in the marketplace, and with the help Omron’s help in development and testing, that’s what they have done

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