ON THE MARK

When Bharat Forging America, Inc. (Lansing, MI), a leading producer of closed die hot forgings, was contracted by a leading piston manufacturer to provide large piston forgings for a new off-highway equipment engine, it was a requirement that each piston forging have specific information marked on each part. The metallurgical integrity and consistency of the forging is paramount, so the marking method preferred by the piston manufacturer was dot-peen. The dot-peen marking method imposes no perceivable stresses on the forgings, and does not create any possible arcing situations that could occur with a laser marker.

John Turner, the piston program manager for Bharat Forge, says, "The forging processing cell that we designed for the pistons required that the marking be performed on the factory floor in the inspection area located near the hot-forging presses (see Figure 1). With that as a requirement, we knew that we would need to talk to a supplier that designed and built special marking machines that were rugged, could handle the harsh environment and provide the programmable dot-peen technology that we needed. We also needed a someone that could "turnkey" the whole marking process and not just provide us a marking unit."

Bharat selected the turnkey dot-peen marking solution proposed by Columbia Marking Tools (Chesterfield Township, MI). Turner explains, "The information that we are required to place on the pistons includes: a heat lot identification number, the die set that was used, a part number, a Bharat supplier identification, and the customer's logo. That's quite a bit of information that needed to be placed in an area on the piston that ultimately would not be machined off. That ideal marking area was determined to be the two areas on the opposite sides of the wrist pin bore location on the piston (see Figure 2)."

As a result, the total marking area became fairly large, which required a dot-peen marking machine with a large marking window and the ability to mark up to seventeen ¼ in characters. The compact PM Micro AXL dot-peen marking unit has a 200 mm (7.87 in) x 80 mm (3.15 in) marking window that met these requirements. Bharat uses the extended carbide pin design with a protective debris shield that adequately protects the stepper motors and ballscrew drive of the marking head.

"Having the marking capability was just part of what we needed in a machine design," adds Turner. "They designed a stand-alone machine that had a rugged machine base and table to which was mounted a manual load/unload rotating two-part piston locating fixture. The PM Micro marking unit is mounted to the back of the machine base and the parts are presented to it for marking. A part present sensor mounted above the fixture is provided to detect when a piston is in position for marking (see Figure 3)."

The PM Micro CNC-controller is contained in an enclosure that is attached to the machine base and located at eye-level. The enclosure also includes a keyboard for programming. The standard unit interfaces with existing Windows® XP or Vista systems using SIGNUMERIC software that allows Bharat to create the logos and special graphics required. The data entered by the keyboard can be viewed and edited on an LCD display before any marking is performed. The text can be fixed or variable, numbering can be sequential, and date coding can be set up to be automatic and character size can vary in 0.1 mm steps. The unit is also very flexible because the penetration depth is easily adjustable through a pressure regulator. Although some of the pistons that we are marking have different metallurgical make-up, their hardness is the same, so the penetration set-up for the parts is also the same.

The PM Micro dot-peen unit is very fast and versatile. Because of its small size, 5-1/2 x 7 x 7 in, it is easy to integrate into a production system. The movement for the marking head is provided by high-torque stepper motors and ballscrew drive that produces the fast 300 mm per second speed, which can mark up to eight characters per second. The electric motors for the X-Y axis require 110 VAC power. 30-75 psi is the operating range for the air-powered pneumatic dot-peen action. With on-board I/O and serial interface, the unit can receive information two different ways, regardless of the type of PLC. It can be designed for automatic, semi-automatic or manual operation.

Turner states, "As the production schedules for the piston program have expanded, we found the need to increase the speed of the marking process as well. This equipment can easily handle our increased production requirements, it's the manual loading and unloading of the parts that is limiting the production cycle time. As a result, we are in the process of building a new manufacturing cell that will utilize three robots that will present the parts to the marking station. Because of the modular design of this marking machine, we will be able to easily reposition the PM Micro unit and the control panel in the new manufacturing cell design. Application engineers from Columbia will be assisting us in finalizing the details of that design."

Bharat Forging America, Inc., 2807 South Martin Luther King Road, Lansing, MI 48910, 517-393-5300, www.bharatforge.com.

Columbia Marking Tools, 27430 Luckino, Chesterfield Township, MI  48047, 800-469-6275, Fax: 586-949-8401, www.columbiamt.com.