Preparing to buy a press brake? Not sure what tools to equip it with? In this article we will guide you on what types of press brake clamping systems there are, and what they are used for.
Press brake is a machine dedicated to bending of, most frequently, sheet metal. The device allows creation of pre-programmed bending operations by inserting a workpiece between correctly pre-matched upper and lower dies.
Clamp purpose is to keep the upper die of our press break in place. Clamps are the part that holds upper dies aligned to the axis along the ram (movable bending traverse or beam). Fastened directly to the beam, clamps take up a large part of the pressure resulting from the bending process; therefore, due to the resulting pressure, not only their functionality but also their durability is of great importance.
Our fast-clamps allow for an immediate exchange of the tooling as the user wishes. Undoubtedly, fast tool changing not only does save time, but it also increases precision and convenience of the upper die clamping process.
There are two types of clamps available for press brakes. We distinguish between them primarily in regard to the point and method of clamping the tool, and above all, their overall construction. Therefore, if you are not sure which clamps to choose for your press brake, please contact us as our technicians are happy to answer any questions.
Clamps at the press brake – the following factors that may determine your choice:
We distinguish between two types of clamps: permanent and exchangeable.
Otinus machines are equipped with exchangeable clamps – Amada Promecam fast clamping system. You can purchase tools dedicated to Promecam from the Polish company, Plasmet, which offers such solutions in response to the growing demand for machines on the market and the attractive price of tools compatible with this system.
Permanently built-in clamps speed up tool changing even faster, yet, along with speed comes higher price and lower versatility. The leader of this solution is the clamping system of WILA New Standard Premium
If we manufacture non-complex products, in most cases single clamps will be enough. This is a standard solution on our presses as front clamps allow you to mount the punches from the outer side of the press brake. With complex shapes it is usually the case that we have to push a substantial part of the workpiece inside the working area of the press. This is inconvenient and may cause additional difficulties or make it impossible to complete the workpiece. Furthermore, the user will undoubtedly have less control over the precision of the dimensions due to the difficulty of bending narrow C and U shaped parts.
With standard single sided press brakes most of the bends will have to be made subsequently on previously bent parts of the workpiece. If you are planning to offer bending services and are looking for versatility, it is definitely worth equipping your press brake with dual sided clamps. This solution will allow you to take control over the whole process, while maintaining accuracy and efficiency. The use of dual sided clamps will eliminate any dimensional errors resulting from incorrect angles from previous bends. This clamping system will allow you to control the quality of your products in a more straightforward way, as well as eliminate the frequent errors resulting from operator negligence.
In practice, the dual clamps are used, as I mentioned, for C and U bending of shaped parts or more complex shapes.
Below, I will present some pictures of using these clamps in practice on Otinus PBO-2563-CNC OT-41 press brakes.
