Acra Machinery on types of blade movement and actuation
There are two types of blade movement and six types of actuation. The major ones are Slide Guided movement and the Swing Beam movement.
The method of movement for several of the smaller machines is slide guided, where the swing beam starts with the heavier capacity and higher production machines.
Types of actuation range from Treadle (or foot operated), Pneumatic, Flywheel Mechanical, Direct Drive Mechancial, Hydromechancial and Hydraulic.
Mechanical
The mechanical guillotine:
Usually its a down stroking machine with a top beam guided by vertical slide-ways. The actuation pulls down on both sides of the beam equally and the blade descends. Easy. The actuation is via either a foot pedal, flywheel with clutch arrangement (less common these days) a motor and gearbox or hydraulic cylinders. The lighter of the capacities are primarily supplied without a backgauge into jobbing shops or as part of a coil line. The machines are generally up to about 2.5 meters.
The larger hydraulic guillotine is more of a production style machine. Using considerably heavy design, the machines are normally fitted with an NC controlled backgauge as standard. Normally these machines start at about 2 meters.
The Durma MS series are an economical and quiet Mechanical guillotine in 1.3 up to 3.0 meters and 2 to 4 mm capacities.
The Durma ES series come standard with a ball screw backgauge and are in 2.5m and 3.0m lengths and 6mm capacities.
Swing beam
The Swing Beam guillotine is next. Hydraulically actuated but the top beam swings off the side plates bringing the blade down in an arc. The main reason for this is the box section that the beam takes on. The box section top beam is rigid and allows a shallow rake verses the material thickness, resulting in less distortion of cut pieces. The box section also maintains a consistent blade clearance along the length of the cut. This design allows a throat on the side of the machine to allow slitting a longer length of steel than the guillotine itself.
The Durma SB series of guillotines come in lengths from 2.5 meters up to 4.0 meters and capacities up to 13mm as standard build. The SB series guillotines are available with a multitude of options to customise them to exact application.
Variable rake angle
The CNC Variable Rake Angle Guillotines are the top end. Hydraulic cylinder control of either end of the machine for rake adjustment and full CNC controllers. These machines have powered blade gap adjustment, variable cutting length and just about everything else you can think of as standard. Designed for ultra high production and often super thick material the CNC Variable Rake Angle shear is the big Daddy of shearing. The variable rake angle allows the operator to adjust the angle of the blade down to half a degree and up to 3 or 4 degrees. The smaller the rake, the less distortion, but the thicker the material, the more rake required to cut.
The CNC control allows the operator to choose the length of cut, thickness of material being cut, and multiple backgauge positions and store these for future use.
The Durma VS series machines are available from 3 up to 10 meters (!!!) and from 6 to 20mm as standard.
The Custom Build Durma machines can be manufactured to almost any size you desire with multiple loading and unloading devices on offer. Front loading devices for plates weighing in the 100’s of kilograms are common place in this machine size.