Steel Strip Winding Machines
Spooling/traverse winding/level winding of small section wire
Most small diameter wires, 0.1 mm diameter to say 1.0 mm diameter and especially flat wire, 0.1 mm wide to 1.0 mm wide, create their own unique challenges.
Most of these products are wound on a bobbin and require special winding characteristics for optimum de-spooling or final processing. A particular characteristic
for both types of product is the ability to introduce a dwell at the end of a spool, wind onto an inverse pineapple bobbin and for flat wires to have the ability
to stagger wind.
Reference should be made to the technical document on spooling, found under the technical information section of this website.
A trapped end is the situation when the product being wound becomes entrapped between the side flange of the bobbin and the spool of material. This problem occurs
more often when the spooling parameters have not been optimised for the particular product being processed and when winding onto a parallel sided bobbin as opposed
to an inverse pineapple bobbin. It is important that all the spooling features are available to the operator when winding these types of products to ensure that
the spooling profile is optimised to suit the particular product being processed, therefore reducing the possibility of a trapped end occurring.
Facilities are available within Double R to demonstrate the winding techniques available to optimise the spooling of these delicate narrow
width products which ensure that the winding density and spooling profile has been optimised for the particular product requirements.
Spooling Steel Strip
When steel strip or steel profiles are initially created they are usually wound in either a pancake planetary format for the wider widths or in a spooled coil
format for the narrower widths. In the pancake format they are not wound on a centre core and in the spooled format they are not wound on a bobbin. This,
basically, is to save money and reduce the necessity to have a component within the package that is ultimately discarded. In many cases, in the final process,
the product has to be de-coiled/unwound onto a suitable package to enable it to be efficiently handled in the final process.
Double R Controls manufacture a range of equipment eminently suited to providing this facility. The basic equipment comprises of a pay-off
(unwind) which will accommodate both a coiled/spooled package or a pancake/planetary wound package and allow this to be de-coiled/unwound and transferred to a suitable
bobbin for use within the next process. Typically, products of this type are wound into a longer length for steel armouring on pipes used in the petro-chemical industry.
Due to the fact that flexible pipes are being laid at a greater depth, it is necessary to provide more strength and steel armouring is spirally wrapped around
these pipes in either a flat strip format or in a profiled format to provide the strength and flexibility required.
The equipment manufactured by Double R Controls incorporates a pay-off and a take-up as well as tension isolation points. This allows the individual pancakes or
spools of material to be welded together to create the longer length required when manufacturing the pipe as it is not possible to stop the pipe manufacturing
process once it has commenced.
The salient features of the equipment include:
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Integral loading and unloading of the packages without the necessity of an overhead crane. |
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Tension isolation points between the unwind and rewind section, therefore enable the welding to take place efficiently without the loss of tension at the pay-off or the take-up sections of the machine. |
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A system to allow the de-coiling/unwinding from the pay-off of either pancakes or coils, depending on the requirements for the particular product being processed. |
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Suitable side flanges can be incorporated at the pay-off to reduce the possibility of edge slipping during the de-coiling or unwinding process. |
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True tension control at the unwind and the rewind sections of the machine. |
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The facility to enable the product to be reversed during the spooling/de-spooling process in the event of a flaw in the material being detected and not accommodated during the winding process. |
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The facility to change the spooling parameters during winding, if found necessary, to ensure a tightly spooled package, therefore preventing any edge slippage while de-spooling takes place in the final process. |
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True length control from both the pay-off and the take-up sections of the machine. |
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A recipe driven HMI for consistency of product |
Since Double R Controls are able to customise the equipment and have all disciplines within our facility we are able to add to the process any
additional features that the customer may require.
The answer to the question is 'yes, it is just a question of time and money!'