Overview:

The crimper crimps a deep-drawn cover onto an aluminum body during motor assembly.

Process Description:

After the assemblies are loaded into a fixture nest, a swing arm clamp closes to hold them in place. Once the part is registered and clamped, a rotary actuator closes the crimping device. Detents are then formed in both side of the deep-drawn cover.  The process unwraps to release the crimper, followed by the clamp.

Technical Challenge:

As the process was to be implemented in a clean lean environment, it was determined that air would be used to supply the crimping force, rather than hydraulics. This minimized the facilities requirements for the equipment, making the system portable, flexible and easily rearranged.  Finding a suitable pneumatic power strategy was somewhat challenging, as the crimp forces were not small. After several conceptual rounds a rotary cam crimping strategy was selected.  With this strategy, the rotary motion of an actuator is converted to a linear motion through the use of cam followers and a linear slide. Geometry of the cam dictates the speed of the crimp and the final crimping force.  By placing a flat on the cam in the final portion of the stroke, extremely high forces were realized with a very small actuator.