There are several very sound reasons to perform regular periodic press inspections on your stamping presses, and absolutely no good reason not to, especially when the safety and wellbeing of your employees may be involved. In fact OSHA regulations compel employers to establish, perform, and document various press inspection routines at regular intervals. We can work with you to develop a system to establish, perform, and document mandated inspections and remain compliant with these safety rules and regulation standards.

During typical PM PRESS INSPECTIONS accrued wear in the mechanical components of the press systems are measured and compared to new and prior condition measurements. Over time wear in bearings and guide gibbing surfaces becomes excessive and eventually manifests under load as lost parallelism between the slide face and the bed/bolster surfaces. Similarly leaks in pneumatic, lubrication, and hydraulic systems will hasten wear and/or effect performance of mechanical components and systems under load. PM PRESS INSPECTIONS visually check and physically measure; levelness, parallelism, gibbing clearances, bearing clearances, and engagement travel of the clutch and brake, as well as looking for loose bolts and cracking in weldment seams, mechanical components, and frame members. Air and oil systems are checked for proper operation, correct pressure settings, proper fluid levels, and leaks in plumbing and fittings. Initial inspection data can be used to outline and prioritize necessary minor adjustments and repairs. Over time, changes in data trends can be used as a predictive tool to formulate a scope and schedule to address more extensive repairs and component rebuilds.

The same techniques of checking and measurement can be utilized in DUE DILIGENCE PRESS INSPECTIONS to determine condition and value of a press prior to purchase from a used equipment dealer or previous owners.

Among other types of press inspections, perhaps the most critical would be STOP TIME ANALYSIS press inspections. By measuring the brake stopping time, as the press crank angle passes through 90 degrees on the downstroke, the MINIMUM SAFE DISTANCE press inspections, for mounting of light curtains and positioning of operator two-hand controls, is calculated. As stopping time increases, the minimum safe distance must also be increased, else adjustments or repairs must be made to reduce the stopping time and bring the calculated minimum safe distance back within acceptable limits.

At regular intervals during any and all types of press inspections the performance of the clutch-brake system should be measured. Over time, the performance of the clutch-brake system degrades as wear in the integral mechanical components increases. Stop time analysis press inspections data can be tracked to predict trending towards unacceptable performance limits and schedule necessary service before problems occur.