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Nantong WEG: High efficiency, high standards, and high requirements/ specialised in electric motor industry

By introducing intelligent diecasting units, WEG (Jiangsu) Electrical Equipment Co Ltd in Nantong, China, has comprehensively improved the automation level of the company’s existing diecasting production lines for higher productivity.

The company has an annual production capacity of 700,000 high/low voltage industrial motors and 100,851 parts. In recent years, WEG has purchased several sets of diecasting cells from YIZUMI. 

 

The first challenge – spraying inside cavity demands

The moulds for motor housings require deep cavities as the surface of the housings is covered with heat radiation fins. The spraying distance of the flat spray nozzle cannot meet the demand of spraying inside the cavity. In addition, as the space between the mould centre cavity and outer cavities is limited, it creates a great challenge for the design of the profiling spray nozzle. 

YIZUMI has designed a special profiling spraying nozzle for motor housings, which extends the water-vapour mixing spray nozzle of the atomiser through a double-layer pipe, allowing the spraying outlet of the release agent to directly enter the cavity for spraying. This approach effectively improves the spray efficiency and quality, ensuring the spray effect in the mould and avoiding product defects due to uneven spraying.
 

The second challenge – extractor gripper design

The characteristics of the deep cavity motor housings also pose a challenge to the design of the extractor gripper. Due to the length of the product and the thickness of the mould, the space available for grippers is very limited. If only one gripper was needed to extract the product and place it on the conveyor, the space would be sufficient. However, in addition to the product extraction, this diecasting cell also needs to cut the ingate system and trim the overflows, which requires the extraction robot to be equipped with a dual function (biscuit/part) gripper to extract and place the product in the hydraulic press after ingate cut.

After repeatedly simulating the 3D drawing of the customer's mould and YIZUMI's preliminary design of the gripper, the engineers found that no matter how much the design was changed, the product gripper would always interfere with the mould when the ingate cutter picked up the part. The design work ran into a deadlock. The design of the gripper plays a key role in the design of the peripheral devices. Eventually, via the use of a quick-change plate, the robot carries the main plate to first connect the sub-plate on the ingate cutter to extract the product, allows the product to cool down, and places it in the cutting device. The ingate cutter is then released and replaced by a product extractor that can easily extract the product after ingate removal.

 

The third challenge – disk saw cutting

The diameter of a large motor housing can exceed 300mm. The commonly used disk saw will need custom-made over-sized saw blades to handle the job. This poses a great challenge to the positioning accuracy of the tooling, the difficulty of adjustment, and the stability of cutting.

YIZUMI designed a special ingate cutting device for motor housing products. In addition to moving along the sawing direction, the fixture that holds the product can also rotate by using an indexing plate, so that a smaller saw blade can be used. It not only ensures the cutting accuracy and operation stability, but also ensures that the product stops after a cycle of cutting at the exact angle where it was placed to facilitate the precision positioning in the next stage when it is placed into the hydraulic press for edge trimming. 

To cope with the fierce market competition, WEG invested CNY 35 million to further optimise and adjust its internal production structure and capacity in February 2020. The company continues to expand the production capacity by adding 125 units of equipment, including painting lines and aluminium motor housing press assembly lines at the plant under construction as well as making adjustments to the environmental protection facilities. Upon the completion of the project, the plant will increase its annual production capacity of high/low voltage industrial motors by 300,000 units, raising the total annual output of the whole plant to one million units. 

Contact: Guangdong Yizumi Precision Machinery Co Ltd. Tel: 86 757 2926 5901, email: [email protected] web: www.yizumi.com

 

Founded in Brazil in 1961, WEG Group is a company specialised in providing customers with industrial electric motors, automation, and energy equipment manufacturing. They offer a wide range of products supporting mining machinery, chemical, air blower, and pump industries. 

In 2014, WEG Group established WEG (Jiangsu) Electrical Equipment Co Ltd in Nantong, China. The China divisions include WEG (Nantong), WEG (Jiangsu), WEG (Changzhou), and Yatong Jiewei Electromotor. WEG (Nantong) is the first wholly owned subsidiary of WEG Group in China and Asia.