Over the past two years, Bovone's R&D department has continued to develop the automation content of its straight-line edging machines. The company is always very careful to tune its technological offer to the real needs of the various reference markets. The new Fully Automatic series of Bovone grinders meets the needs of the glass industry that requires high productivity rates while maintaining constant the quality of the finished product. At Vitrum 2021, Bovone previewed the new ELB 11/45 FA, attributing to this model the role of ambassador of the important achievements in terms of process automation achieved by the company: the Bovone FA edgers bring significant improvements on three main aspects.
AUTOMATIC COMPENSATION OF WHEEL WEAR
No manual management of the grinding wheel increase to compensate for wear during processing. The machine spindles are positioned on motorized slides managed by the automatic system that compensates for the reduction in height through powerful software equipped with an intuitive and easy-to-use HMI. The automatic adjustment of the grinding wheel position can take place through three distinct modes based on the linear meters of glass processed, on the absorption level of the spindles, or on the combination of these two parameters.
WHEEL CHANGE ALERT
Changing the wheels at the appropriate time is essential to make the most of the tool, obtaining and maintaining the high quality level of the finishing. When the wheel reaches the end of its life, an acoustic and visual system warns the operator of the need to replace the wheel. This innovation allows to carry on the production cycle avoiding those interruptions necessary to verify any advanced state of wear of the grinding wheel such as to affect the quality level of the processing: the operation frees itself from the subjectivity of the operator, which previously determined its success, and is now determined by the machine which signals to the operator the exact moment in which the tool is approaching the end of its life and therefore needs to be replaced.
FAST WHEEL SETUP
The wheel change of the machine is easier and faster. Alerted by the machine signaling system, the operator starts the wheel change operation from the screen: the spindle lowers automatically, leaving the operator the space to replace the wheel in a comfortable and easy way. Once the operation is complete, the grinding wheel positions itself at the correct quota in a completely automatic way, allowing the operator to start production again in drastically shorter times than with the same procedure manually performed before. Always with a view to improving the machine set-up procedures, Bovone has integrated the supplied software with recipes that can be recalled by the operator in a simple and intuitive way, in order to quickly start the production of the various batches while maintaining the production parameters constant. In this way, the quality outcome of production is independet from the skill and sensitivity of the individual operator in action on that given machine. The whole FA series of ELB edging machines can be integrated into fully automated robotic systems, Bovone Robotic Systems, specifically designed for processing large slabs.
