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A radically new automated tube bending cell has been developed by Unison. It provides a complete end-to-end loading/end-forming/bending and vision inspection process in the footprint typically required for a standalone tube-bending machine. Called Uni-vercell, its innovative, all-electric machine architecture centered on an articulated robot arm breaks new ground in terms of performance and compactness.

Priced to compete with standalone tube benders, Uni-vercell fabricates tubular parts with diameters up to 3/4 in (16 mm), and sits in a footprint of just 48 sq ft (4.5 sq m). The machine includes a tube loader, 6-axis robotic arm with a 13.23 lb (6 kg) payload, 2-stage end-former, a multi-stack mandrel-less tube bender, and vision system.

The integrated vision system allows the cell to operate unmanned with 100 percent inspection of bend angles and end form shapes. The programmability of the system also makes it easy to integrate further functions such as product labeling, which can easily be fitted into the extensive free vertical space.

Unison is well known as the pioneer of all-electric servomotor-controlled tube benders that provide substantial set-up, repeatability and scrap reduction advantages compared with traditional hydraulic-powered machines, and have become the de facto choice for most new machine purchases for smaller tube diameters up to 6 in (150 mm). The same architectural principles are exploited in this new machine, which features a software-centric architecture that gives unprecedented control over tube part fabrication.

Two major innovations are at the heart of Uni-vercell. The first is the replacement of a tube bender's carriage with an articulated robotic arm. By adapting the arm with a simple collet for gripping and rotating the tubular part, the arm is able to hold and manipulate the part continuously from pick up, through end forming, tube bending and inspection stages, to final release. This eliminates the cost of the carriage and the large space required for the carriage bed, as well as numerous intervening reference points, jigs and handling equipment that might normally be required when building a cell from discrete components.