Beckwood Press Co.
889 Horan Drive
Fenton, MO 63026-2405
(St. Louis)
Phone : 636.343.4100
Fax : 636.343.4424
info@beckwoodpress.com
Press Example Search
Fall/Winter 2008-09
Beckwood Manufactures Innovative Triform Press for Sheet Hydroforming
Beckwood Press Company has been awarded a manufacturing agreement with PTG Technology, Tulsa, OK, to manufacture a revolutionary Deep Draw Sheet Hydroforming Press. The innovative new Triform Press is compact, accurate and value engineered with proven and updated technology. The 10,000 psi system weighs 33% of a traditional press and requires a reduced floor space of 118” x 220”. The 2,200 ton machine is engineered for portability and installs in one day at most facilities.
The Triform Presss utilizes a proven containment technique during the hydroform process that has be
New Feature Added to Standard Line of Benchtop Presses
Beckwood Press Company recently added an important design element to their line of 3-40+ ton standardized benchtop presses (DJ Series). The DHS models will now feature a ram equipped with anti-rotation, further helping maintain consistent die alignment throughout the cycle.
The DJ Series Presses are standardized hydraulic and hydro-pneumatic benchtop presses that are available in stock or with a short lead time. All DJ Series presses offer high-speed, high-precision performance. They are suitable for, but not limited to: assembly, compression, punching, trimming, blanking, stamping, and coining applications. These standardized benchtop systems can be modified for specific applications that require customized stroke, shut height, bed size and/or control systems. They can be equipped with standard relay based controls or an upgraded PLC control system featuring an operator interface and a digitally programmable pressure switch for return on pressure capability.
Beckwood Delivers Hydraulic Press to Orange County Choppers
Beckwood Press Company recently delivered a technologically advanced deep draw hydraulic press to Orange County Choppers' (OCC) new facility in Newburgh, NY. The Beckwood Hydraulic Press allows OCC to have the in-house capability to form tanks, fenders and other drawn parts for their production line of motorcycles.
Paul Teutul Sr., f
ounder of Orange County Choppers, chose Beckwood Press Company to provide the latest in hydraulic press technology, integrated with top of the line components such as Rockwell Automation and Parker Hannifin. These proven systems provide OCC, an ideal press for handling advanced deep drawn parts to compliment their line of fully customized products.
The 350 ton 4-post draw press is equipped with Beckwood's Active Leveling Control (ALC) System which delivers flexibility and precision through a 4-axis parallelism control. A dynamic bed cushion compliments the ALC system by offering control through 4 separate travel zones. The press utilizes “Green” technology that surpasses the energy efficiency of traditional hydraulic & mechanical presses through the use of a Variable Frequency Drive (VFD).
Beckwood Launches New Hydraulic Press Website
Beckwood has announced the launching of their new hydraulic press web site: www.beckwoodpress.com. The site includes new sections dedicated to hydraulic press technology and information on specific applications. The “Find a Hydraulic Press” section has been updated and expanded to include a wider range of examples sorted by press application, type and tonnage capacity for ease of use.
Additional sections have been added to include: an off-center loading technology center, compression molding technology center, a technical information page related to Beckwood's Active Leveling Control (ALC) system along with an innovative new display of press experiences. Other new features include: 3 improved internal search engines designed for ease of use, an improved navigation menu and an updated quick quote form that includes the ability to quote specific press examples from the site.
Spotlight On: Compression Molding
Compression molding requires precise pressure, position, speed control, and parallelism throughout the working stroke. Hydraulic presses can dwell under pressure for any length of time, vary ram speeds, and provide a constant force over a large area, which is precisely the press characteristics compression molding requires.
A large majority of compression molding applications require large bed sizes but comparatively low tonnage. The ability to easily customize a hydraulic press assures that the purchaser need only purchase the press capacity they require, versus whatever is standard with a larger bed size.
Beckwood compression molding presses are ruggedly designed with the ability to be integrated into any molding application by offering a wide variety of performance packages for your needs. Hydraulic press improvements engineered to optimize the compression molding process include control of ancillary process equipment, actuation of internal die components (such as core knockouts, ejectors, and punches), and up-acting or multiple-action rams. Precision-heated platen integration with customer-specified heating tolerances and die controls are also common.
All Beckwood Presses can be designed with the ability to dwell under pressure, have variable ram speeds and provide a constant force over a large area. Additional features such as double and triple action rams and part ejection systems can be incorporated into a fully integrated press system.
How To Corner: Active Leveling Technology
In an attempt to offset decreasing margins and increased competition, today's manufacturers are driven to consolidate processes, minimize operator error and reduce material scrap. In order to thrive in these conditions, manufacturers must push for a greater emphasis in technology. The hydraulic 
press market has grown with these challenging demands. One of the most popular advances is the utilization of Active Leveling Control. This technology counteracts the negative effects of off-center loading, significant breakthrough shock with high strength steels and reverse shock loading associated with the use of nitrogen in dies.
1. What is Active Leveling Control?
Active Leveling Control (ALC) is a technologically advanced system that utilizes closed loop control for each corner of the press ram, keeping the press ram in parallel and reducing shock. Presses equipped with ALC utilize a high speed motion controller, linear transducers and proportional valves to synchronize the press actuators. The 32-bit multi-axis high-speed motion controller provides less than 1 msec control loop time
Active Leveling control for bed-to-ram parallelism is offered in either 2 or 4 axis depending on the application. Two-axis control provides either left to right, or front to rear parallelism. For users requiring both left to right and front to rear parallelism, four-axis control is recommended.
2. How does Active Leveling Control benefit off-center loading?
Off-Center loading can be caused by many issues. While Off-Center loading may be beneficial, or needed in the manufacturing process, it can cause unwanted issues to arise within the press, dies and overall application. Poor part quality & inconsistency, premature tool wear, and detrimental stress on the press structure are all likely to occur if the press has not been properly designed to handle an unbalanced load.
The most common cause of off-center loading is due to the geometry of the part formed not being conducive to an even load. Many applications do not form evenly over the press bed and can wreak havoc on a press or tooling. Other difficult Off-Center Loading processes may include progressive dies and the desire to consolidate multiple operations (and multiple dies) into a single machine. In addition, many presses can be improperly loaded due to operator error, creating additional alignment problems. This can especially be a problem for presses with big beds and/or small tooling.
A properly engineered Active Leveling Control system will provide many capabilities to counteract the negative effects of off-center loading. This improvement supplies protection for the press structure and tooling while decreasing maintenance costs. Many processes that historically could not be unified in one press are now being efficiently combined and properly executed with the integration of the ALC system. This feature enables companies to displace multiple presses and save valuable floor space, which in turn reduces labor costs and creates room for more capacity. The ALC technology is paralleled by servo mechanical presses but offers more flexibility at a significantly reduced price.
3. How does Active Leveling Control decrease the effects of breakthrough shock?
Challenging issues often arise in blanking of advanced high-strength steels, causing tremendous breakthrough shock. In these instances, the high-speed controller senses the acceleration of the ram during breakthrough and adjusts the axis control valves to restrain the ram all while remaining parallel. This greatly reduces the effects of the breakthrough shock in challenging applications and improves the life of the press and die.
4. How can Active Leveling Control be engineered to handle reverse shock loading?
Beckwood's Active Leveling Control system also features a unique solution for dies with nitrogen springs. Nitrogen springs, although sometimes critical 
to the die, can cause issues that need to be compensated for in the press system. Nitrogen is typically engineered into dies for blank holding, shock control or compensation for load distribution. Traditional springs are dynamic and offer resistance to compression and constant extension force. New and much more expensive nitrogen systems can be engineered with dampening controls to minimize the affects of extension forces once compressed.
In traditional applications, as the press retracts, the up acting force from the Nitrogen springs can cause reverse loading shock in the press. In many applications nitrogen springs are used to balance off-center loads. While this works well in the down motion of the press ram, it can wreak havoc in the retract motion of the ram.
Beckwood's ALC system goes beyond controlling just the down or extend portion of the press cycle and controls the retract portion of the press cycle. The controlled retraction maintains bed to ram parallelism in unbalanced nitrogen systems and allows for smoother decompression by utilizing programmable distance on the upstroke. Once the ram has retracted past the nitrogen stroke, it can be placed safely into a traditional open loop fast-retract mode.
5. Summary
As hydraulic design technology advances, manufacturers will be presented with new capabilities to increase the efficiency of their production processes. Active Leveling Control can be integrated into a new hydraulic press to increase part quality, reduce die wear, and reduce complex setup time. This system provides the ideal solution for manufacturers who need to counteract the effects off-center loading, significant breakthrough shock, and reverse shock loading situations.