Automation in Winding, Coiling and Cutting for Reduced Labor and Increased Safety and Consistency

Reel Power is demonstrating an ACT-26 automatic cut and transfer coiling and spooling machine showcasing the company’s available options, including robotic pick-and-place, banding, stretch wrapping, and automatic loading and indexing.

Market trends in automation and safety have inspired the company to strategically increase the technological features of its products. “Everybody wants to automate,” says Joe Henry, Reel Power CEO. “Everybody has labor problems, so everybody is trying to automate a lot of those manual, labor-intensive steps in their process so that’s really driving our business.”

The ACT-26 has two spindles on a rotating turret. As a spool reaches the set length of material, the turret rotates so that an empty spool replaces the full one automatically, transferring without operator intervention. An extrusion line, for example, can keep right on running.

“We’re showing off all our capabilities in this one machine. Will any given customer want all of that in one machine? Probably not. But it demonstrates who Reel Power is,” Henry says.

A Yaskawa HC20DTP collaborative robot is also on display, demonstrating automated spool removal from the ACT-26, which can also be configured to eject to a conveyor. By removing manual steps like loading and unloading, and stretch wrapping the finished spools, Reel Power is also removing potential interactions where injury can occur. “Safety is another driving trend in the marketplace,” Henry says.

Reel Power’s precision winding capabilities are encoded in software that drives the ACT-26, a feature aimed at customers concerned about the neat  and uniform appearance of a spool, those in the health care industry, for instance.

The control panel also features a remote access device, giving Reel Power the ability to provide customers with production data such as feed footage, spools per shift, machine uptime and any fault conditions.

This same feature provides maintenance functionality. Vibration, temperature and alignment sensors can enable customers to implement predictive maintenance and reduce overall downtime. It also enables Reel Power to assist with troubleshooting remotely.

“Customers are not replenishing the technical people who work on machinery, so now Reel Power is offering preventive maintenance programs and contracts,” Henry says.