New Vibratory Finishing System Enhances Existing Material Handling & Drying Equipment

When it comes to high-volume production of complex aluminum die-castings, Kovolis Hedvikov a.s. (Kovolis) is a sought after partner by numerous car manufacturers and their suppliers. To expand its capacity and achieve more flexibility in the overall manufacturing process, the company purchased a continuous flow vibratory finishing system from Rosler designed to handle a wide work piece spectrum and custom engineered to fit into the available space at the customer’s premises.

 

About Kovolis

 

Founded in 1816 as an ironworking operation, Kovolis has focused entirely on aluminum die casting since 1945. Today, Kovolis produces components from nine different aluminum alloys weighing between 7 oz (200 grams) and 18 lbs (8 kg) with different casting technologies including vacuum investment casting and rheocasting.

 

Their product range includes brakes, power steering systems, turbo chargers, and compressors for air conditioning systems. Kovolis customers are renowned car manufacturers and tier-1 suppliers that also utilize the company as an important partner for product development, machining, heat treatment, and surface finishing services.

 

 

New Needs Call for a New System

 

Jiri Buzek, manager of foundry III at Kovolis, explained the need for a new vibratory finishing system.

 

“Our product portfolio underwent a drastic change in the past years. The trend goes more and more to larger and more delicate components, which require a vibratory finishing step after punch deburring for their downstream handling. Our existing finishing system was not designed for this and had also reached the end of its productive service life.”

 

The new system not only had to cope with larger work pieces, but the finishing process also had to be a lot gentler. Additional customer requirements were high equipment uptimes and cost efficiency. And, above all, the new finishing system had to be integrated into the existing manufacturing operation, utilizing the existing work piece loading device and hot air belt drier.

 

The planning engineers at Kovolis submitted these specifications to two German equipment suppliers.

 

“We decided to go with the Rosler continuous feed vibratory finishing system, because it offers ample capacity, and Rosler met all our special technical requirements. Of course, the fact that our company has had excellent experience with other equipment from the same supplier certainly helped,” Buzek said.

 

The single curve U-shaped cross section of the processing channel guarantees the optimum movement of the media and work pieces through the machine.

 

Kovolis also appreciates that Rosler can supply the equipment as well as all compounds and finishing media needed. This allows the perfect adaptation of the finishing process to the customer’s work pieces.

 

A Customized Solution

 

The new finishing system consists of a linear continuous feed machine, type R 550/4600 DA, with a usable length of 15 ft (4.6 m). The functions of the existing work piece loading system and hot air belt drier were integrated into the overall system controls.

 

“Rosler met all our technical requirements and provided valuable support in optimizing our finishing process,” Buzek said.

 

The system offers a number of features and capabilities, including:

 

• Fully automatic feeding of the work pieces every 30 seconds.
• Accommodation of parts with diameters of up to 16 in (400mm).
• Adjustable processing times.
• Dual-stage separation with rinsing station.
• Process water cleaning with an automatic centrifuge.

 

The processing bowl angle can be adjusted to change the processing time.

 

Kovolis was especially impressed with the centrifuge technology Rosler offers.

 

“In the past we cleaned our process water chemically or with a semi-automatic centrifuge. This was highly labor intensive and costly” Buzek said. “With respect to process water-cleaning, Rosler provided us again with the optimum solution.

 

“We are certain that with the new equipment we will not only improve the quality of our finishing operation but, at the same time, will become more cost efficient.” 

 

The Rosler Way

 

As the international market leader, Rosler offers total solutions in the field of mass finishing and shot blasting, painting and preservation systems, and mass finishing consumables.

 

In addition, Rosler offers a broad spectrum of surface finishing technologies (deburring, descaling, desanding, polishing, surface grinding, etc.) for work pieces made from metal and other materials. Headquartered in Germany, the Rosler Group maintains sales and manufacturing branches in Great Britain, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Serbia, Switzerland, Spain, Romania, Russia, Brazil, India, China, and the United States.

 

Contact us to discuss how we can provide a customized solution to solve your unique challenges.

#Automotive #Continuous Flow Vibrator #Vibratory Finishing Machines

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