Taking Your Tube ’Round the Bend
Pipes have been around for a long time. Egyptians were using copper pipes 5,000 years ago. Working with pipes has always been a straightforward affair—literally. Pipes, tubing, and conduits run in straight lines and traditionally have been rerouted by connecting lengths of them with fittings of some sort, such as elbows.
The development of tube benders began in the early 20th century, providing a fast and inexpensive solution for redirecting tubing without the need for joints that can potentially leak. From conduit benders in the 1930s and rotary benders for bicycles and furniture in the 1940s to pipe and tube bending machines in the 1950s, the tube bending industry was in full swing by mid-century.
While angle rolls can be used to bend lengths of tubing and pipes, those metal fabrication shops that need to do bending of this sort on a regular basis may wish to invest in a stand-alone tube and pipe bender that is designed specifically for this work.
The RMT TPB-SERVO Series
The folks at Revolution Machine Tools aren’t strangers to machines that fabricate using tubes and pipes. Their offerings include:
- RMT Tube Notchers
- RMT Pipe Rotators
- RMT Combination Pipe Facing, Beveling, Threading Machines
- RMT Tube-cutting Fiber Lasers
- Jae Won Steel Pipe Solutions
The newest addition to their tube and pipe fabrication line-up are the two models in the RMT TPB-SERVO Series of CNC tube and pipe bending machines. Utilizing advanced—yet user-friendly—CNC technology for precise control over all aspects of the bending operation, the TPB-SERVO benders are easily programmed to efficiently perform high-quality bending in light steel, stainless, aluminum, and other materials.
TPB-SERVO benders furnish hydraulic operation of clamping, gantry, supports, slider, shaft carrier, and collet, with an electric cooling system for the hydraulic oil. They also have an automatic lubrication system.
Though they can be operated manually, their fully automatic mode allows an operator to simply feed pipe into a TPB-SERVO machine and push a button to begin a pre-programmed process to shape the material into as complex a form as needed. With multi-step bending, die stacking, and push bending capabilities, these fabrication marvels supply convenience in single bending operations and significant cost savings in mass production.
The CNC control panel features an Intel Core i5 CPU with 8GB of ram and a 21″ color touch screen. It offers 5-axis servo control (Y, B, C, H, V axes) and allows programming to be done in YBC mode and then it will convert it into X, Y, Z, R format. It delivers three-axial centerpolation movements, is equipped with a 2D drawing program with 3D bending simulations, provides an automatic pipe calculation, and has a line-by-line deletion feature.
The OMRON PLC (programmable logic controller) operates the five OMRON servo motors with real-time feedback for accurate movement in all axes. Other features of the TPB-SERVO machines include unlimited radius with the rolling system (pushing and bending), a Y-axis linear axis system, and spiral bending capability for some diameters.
Below are the specifications of the two models in the TPB-SERVO Series of CNC tube and pipe benders currently available from RMT (please note that due to ongoing product development, machine specs and availability can change without notice).
Specifications of the RMT TPB-SERVO 5X1.5 Tube and Pipe Bender:
- 1.5″ maximum pipe diameter
- 0.079″ maximum wall thickness
- 190° maximum bending degree
- 9.84″ maximum bending radius
- 0.98″ minimum bending radius
- 236″ maximum pipe/tube length capacity (with mandrel)
- Unlimited pipe/tube length capacity (without mandrel)
- 59″/sn. working feeding speed
- 180″/sn. working rotation speed
- 150″/sn. working bending speed
- 0.004″ working tolerances for feeding, rotation and bending
- 5.4 HP OMRON servo motor for movement of the feeding axis
- 1 HP OMRON servo motor for movement of the rotation axis
- 6.7 HP OMRON servo motor for movement of the bending axis
- 1 HP OMRON servo motor for movement of the right-left axis
- 1 HP OMRON servo motor for up and down movement
- 4 HP hydraulic system
- 309 lbs./cm2 (bar) maximum hydraulic pressure
- 13-gallon oil tank capacity
- 13 gallons per minute cooling capacity
- 323″ L x 71″ W x 55″ H machine size
Specifications of the RMT TPB-SERVO 5X2.5 Tube and Pipe Bender:
- 2.5″ maximum pipe diameter
- 0.118″ maximum wall thickness
- 190° maximum bending degree
- 7.87″ maximum bending radius
- 0.98″ minimum bending radius
- 158″ maximum pipe/tube length capacity (with mandrel)
- Unlimited pipe/tube length capacity (without mandrel)
- 59″/sn. working feeding speed
- 100″/sn. working rotation speed
- 100″/sn. working bending speed
- 0.004″ working tolerances for feeding, rotation and bending
- 10 HP OMRON servo motor for movement of the feeding axis
- 2 HP OMRON servo motor for movement of the rotation axis
- 10 HP OMRON servo motor for movement of the bending axis
- 2 HP OMRON servo motor for movement of the right-left axis
- 2 HP OMRON servo motor for up and down movement
- 10 HP hydraulic system
- 309 lbs./cm2 (bar) maximum hydraulic pressure
- 26-gallon oil tank capacity
- 26 gallons per minute cooling capacity
- 244″ L x 71″ W x 55″ H machine size
Bend Your Metal with a Machine from RMT
Whatever your metal-bending needs, Revolution Machine Tools has the right machine to fill the bill. Along with the pipe bending and tube bending capabilities of RMT’s TPB-SERVO series, they also offer traditional angle rolls in a variety of sizes, along with specialized bending machines like their series of aircraft rolls. If you work with sheet and plate metal, you can put an angle in it with one of RMT’s 75 different models of press brakes or curve it with one of over 100 different sheet and plate rolls.
Whatever you do with metal, do it better with a machine from Revolution Machine Tools. Please give them a call today and get a competitive quote on your next metal fabrication solution.
