BLIND MACHINERY'S LEADING EDGE

ULTRACUT INDUSTRIES
Ultracut Industries now boasts new branding, a new website and new machinery, all of which will be on display at the upcoming BMAA Super Expo 2019.

Director Garth Jacobs indicates the company is coming of age, with a fully integrated ‘turn-key’ fabrication solution encompassing machines for a comprehensive range of enduses. These include the entry level Sabre, sonic and crush cutting Combocutter, automatic dual axis Vectrocut Sono or Autometrix plotter cutter.

For fabrics that have been cut, Ultracut’s Assembly Jig enables roller blind skins to be accurately attached to tubes. The use of Ultracut’s Double Post Digital Hoist can then be used as a final quality check and to rectify any tracking that at times occurs with ‘off-grain’ fabrics.

To facilitate the cut and assembly of fabric skins, Ultracut’s EzySaw upsaw and EzyStop digital saw stop can be deployed for fast and accurate cutting of tube, base rails and most other extruded aluminium componentry. The EzyStop’s auto-labelling in unison with that of the Combocutter and Vectrocut Sono, enables quick and accurate matching of tube, base rail and skin prior to assembly.

“Ultracut has responded to the growth in demand of outdoor privacy screens with the advent of a scaled up Vectrocut Sono, which cuts and seals wide width outdoor mesh skins,” says Jacobs. “Now taking the next step to an assembly ready skin, Ultracut is launching its newly developed DuoWeld impulse welder.”

Available in two models, the DuoWeld is capable of welding up to either one or two fabric widths, inclusive of seams or affixing zippers and so on. “Some revolutionary features will also position the DuoWeld as the industry’s most flexible impulse welder, catering to the varying privacy screen brands on the market. With a maximum weld width of 6.4m, it can tackle the largest of jobs with ease.”

RAYTECH CONCEPTS
Raytech’s Chris Hart confirms Super Expo 2019 will see the launch of the latest in Raytech’s CNC cutting tables. The new X Series table adds to the V Vector Series and Matic’s M1 Ultimate to offer customers the ultimate choice in CNC cutting.

In October 2018 Raytech installed the M1 Ultimate at Franklyn in Brisbane, pioneering the use of a toughened glass deck for CNC cutting in Australia and with Matic’s novel long axis hold down of the fabric using tensioned belts.

Also in 2018 Raytech launched the V Series Table with vectoring cutting heads. “The table features a new patented hold down that eliminated the need for three phase power, suction or plastic overlays. And the deck is without holes so there are no points of non-cutting on the table. Raytech then tested ultrasonic units from all over the world before settling on the fantastic German Steckmann unit with 1000 W of sealing energy, which is three or four times the power of other ultrasonic tools. This unit allowed us to cut and seal everything from light filtering translucent fabrics right up to the heaviest external mesh products from Ricky Richards, Nolans and HVG. Crush cutting was included for more economical cutting and versatility.”

To determine the potential for innovation that might build on these advantages, Raytech canvassed clients in terms of their requirements. “We found that the vast majority of clients needed rectilinear cutting only, meaning they cut rectangles all day long,” says Hart. “So, we made a somewhat simplified design table, which is the new X Series. It performs rectangular cutting only and it still crushcuts or ultrasonically seals. The overall result is faster cutting with sealed edge cutting as required, all with less complexity. Given the cost saving that the new design enabled, Raytech was empowered to include a new second automatically moving gantry to hold down the fabric after it is pulled out by the first gantry, thereby delivery even more efficiency.”

“With the X Series Raytech recommends the option of the long wearing, low maintenance toughened glass deck, which will suit many clients who require ultrasonic and crush cut sealed edges. And with the new deck design we can ship and install the X Series into New Zealand or anywhere in Australia. Raytech expects the X Series to take these cutting table innovations to clients all over the world.”

Also from Raytech, the recently released U Series Ultrasonic welder is a new competitor to traditional Impulse welding or high frequency welders. The welding head moves incrementally and fully automatically to complete the required length of weld without any operator intervention. The result is comparable to an impulse welder and the weld time for any given length is only slightly longer than for an Impulse welder. The ease of positioning the attachment is a feature of the design, indeed it is somewhat easier than an Impulse welder because there is no large overhead structure to get in the way.

“Ultrasonic relies on sound waves being vibrated 30,000 times per second and the oscillation of the synthetic materials provides the heat to perform the weld. It has been used in industrial processes for decades and is very commonly used for cutting and welding processes with synthetic materials. The ultrasonic process is safe, unlike radio and high frequency welders where any leaked radiation from the welding process is potentially harmful to people in the vicinity.”

“Because only vertical motion is used to perform the bond, there is no lateral movement of the fabric in relation to the weldment so there are no forces to create the puckering that is common where any heated tooling moves laterally through the welding process. This is a problem associated with wedge welders and hot air welders. Another advantage of the ultrasonic process is that it requires 240v only and so expensive three phase power consumption is avoided.”

“The operating procedure is relatively easy and straightforward. There is no requirement for the operator to watch the process and he or she can prepare the next job while the welding process is happening. No onerous repositioning is required like small welders of 600 or 800mm length of weld, so improved accuracy of the weld placement can be assured. The U series can be custom made in any length so an 8m weld or longer is possible although it is best to select an appropriate length for a one pass operation to handle the majority of the work.”

“On price point, the U series fits between the small RF style welders and the large Impulse welders,” Hart confirms. “And being Australian designed and manufactured it can be usually be supplied faster than the impulse welders that have long supply and shipping times.”

AERONAUT AUTOMATION
Aeronaut Automation is increasingly working on optimising efficiency and reducing waste fabric, says founder John Clark. “Aeronaut’s products may be a little more expensive than the competition but the payback in terms of increased production speed and reduced waste is easy to quantify.”

“Aeronaut recently sold a 12 metre ultrasonic table to a business in Queensland who already owns three shorter Aeronaut cutters. Aeronaut has delivered several ultrasonic cutters to North America which are up to this length but it’s a first for Australia. Why such a long vacuum table?”

“A typical Aeronaut blind cutting table is six metres long and typically cuts 33 – 42 skins per hour. We did a series of ‘what-if’ calculations nesting about a half-hour’s cutting on one type of fabric onto various lengths of cutting table.”

“The surprising result is that if you extend a six metre table to 8.4 metres, you can save about $150 worth of fabric an hour and with a 12 metre table, the waste reduction can be over $300. That’s about $480,000 saved a year.”

“Obviously, a business has to be cutting enough skins on the same fabric to get these savings but even if you are cutting half a dozen skins a day from one fabric, the savings can be calculated.”

While long cutting tables occupy more expensive factory floor space and take longer to walk around, load and unload, they do offer advantages, Clark says. “You can nest more patterns onto a longer table and waste a lot less fabric and pro-rata, a lot more time is spent actually cutting. Short cutting tables, where blinds are often cut one at a time, waste the most fabric.”

“On cutting tables where the fabric is held down by clamp bars when cutting, you cannot freely nest patterns the way you can on a vacuum table where there’s nothing to get in the way so these systems are very inefficient in terms of fabric wastage.”

Clark notes another Aeronaut innovation which is proving extremely popular as a timesaver is the inkjet print head attachment. If blind skins need labelling, it can take some time for the machine to mark with a pen. Using the inkjet head takes just a couple of seconds to write a whole line.

Aeronaut’s ADE or Automatic Data Entry system, which imports cut data from factory order management software, is being promoted as a great way to increase productivity and reduce mistakes. ADE has been on the market since 2003 but more and more customers are implementing this system to avoid double entry of cut data.

“It doesn’t matter if cut sizes are calculated by Aeronaut’s own software or sales and order management software, the important thing is to standardise and code these calculations to avoid mistakes and inconsistencies. This was brought into sharp focus when customising deigns for a new business, and management realised that workers were wasting 300mm of material on every skin by allowing too much wrap around the blind’s roller mechanism.”

ADE works with Aeronaut’s ParaSol rapid pattern development program for window furnishings. ParaSol is a mature and sophisticated program which can compensate for factors such as shrinkage, thickness of fabric and weight of battens to make sure that skins are consistent across all fabrics and sizes. “ParaSol can create patterns for almost anything from a roman skin to a hurricane screen, an increasingly popular area of business these days.”

“In the US market, Aeronaut is seeing a lot of interest in digitally printed blinds. Aeronaut’s Cyclops machine vision cameras make accurate cutting of these materials as easy as working with plain fabric.”

“There’s a lot of interest in higher levels of automation where a single button press from an operator will run a complete cut cycle from automatically feeding fabric onto the table to returning it to the roll ready for the next cycle as the skins are removed from the table.”