Simple Solutions That Work! Issue 6

The foundry cleaning room is the final frontier for application of advanced technology in the modern day foundry. Over the last few years automatic grinding machines have been making significant strides in the cleaning rooms of the metal casting industry. Foundries have been searching for new ways to increase productivity, address manpower issues and employee safety concerns while improving quality control and consistency. Many foundries have begun to turn to automatic grinding as an answer to these problems and they are using laser controls to maximize the value of these machines to their operation. Most foundrymen have experienced the unique challenge of training new employees while under the constant pressure to meet the modern demands from customers of higher productivity and quality. When addressing these complex challenges there is always the need to have tighter controls and more exact tools to help meet these expectations. This is where laser controls are being used successfully in automatic grinding machines to enhance productivity and quality of the final product while reducing scrap, customer rejects and rework. The initial use of the laser control in an automatic grinding machine is to identify the part that is in the fixture, to make certain that you are about to grind on the correct casting. Employees are only human and humans make mistakes. The laser control can be a tremendous asset to avoid this type of mistake by stopping the machine if the wrong casting is in the machine. The laser can also be used to verify that the casting has been placed in the correct orientation on the fixture prior to any grinding. This will insure that the proper areas of the part receive the correct amount of grinding, eliminating another potential human error by stopping the machine. Palmer Manufacturing PALMER MAUS NORTH AMERICA ARTICLE TAKEAWAYS: • Laser checks for the highest quality control • Automatic laser checks to reduce waste SYSTEMS INTEGRATION Figure 1 Laser Control 36 THE APPLICATIONOF LASER CONTROLS INAUTOMATIC GRINDINGMACHINES