Because all three of the parts require a similar process—a vertical press, horizontal actuators, and heat—the JR team designed one safety and control system with multiple rolling tooling carts, a huge cost savings for the customer.
The rolling tooling carts each house its own mechanical, electrical, and fluid power components.
To change part types, simply disconnect and roll out the tooling, switching it with another. The customer can build additional tooling carts for new similar part types.
To create the bonding heat source, JR used closed loop water heating with ported tooling, which provides more consistency than electric heat. To prevent wrinkling and puckering, tunable compound motion edgefolds with single actuators stretch the material following the contour of the part.