Principles of Purchasing Light Steel Roll-Forming Machine
With the advancement of technology, prefabricated buildings have attracted more and more attention in the market. As the main structural members of the light steel building, the light steel studs, determines the quality of the light steel framing construction in a large extent. If you want to produce high-quality light steel building, you need a powerful light steel roll-forming equipment. However, there are many kinds of LGS equipment on the market. How can we choose the right one? Below we have compiled some methods for your reference.
1) Principle one of purchasing light steel roll-forming machine: precise. The length and dimension of the studs, the relative position and dimension of functional holes, especially the position and dimension accuracy of the dimple holes, must be accurate. The high-end standard in the industry is the cut-to-length tolerance of ±1.0mm, and the position tolerance for dimple hole of ±0.5mm, to ensure that the produced members are consistent with the design drawings, installed on the construction site smoothly, reducing additional labor costs. Common problems with inaccurate dimensions are as follows: a. When the machine is in slow running speed, the accuracy is acceptable, and when the running speed rises to normal or fast, various dimensional error increase. b. When the machine produces short members, the dimension is acceptable. When producing long members of 5 meters and above, the dimensional accuracy error is significantly increased. Precision is the most basic requirement for a light gauge steel equipment. If this requirement is not met, everything else are of no consequence.
2) Principle two of purchasing light steel roll-forming machine: fast. We should keep in mind that it only makes sense to discussed the machine speed when the above precision principle is fulfilled. Take the most commonly used C89 profile as an example. A leading manufacturer promises in the technical specification: typical production capacity of Joists: 300 m/hr (985 ft/hr); Walls: 700 m/hr (2,300 ft/hr). On average, it should reach 450 meters per hour. However, most machines have unsatisfactory speeds. Customers are usually told that the production capacity is 3-4 tons/day (8 hours), convert into line speed is only about 300 meters/hour ( In 183mm coil width, 1.0mm thickness ). This shows that the difference on productivity is not little. Equipment with slow production speed is really "cheap to buy but expensive to use". As a user, this factor must be considered when purchasing LGS equipment.
3) Principle three of purchasing light steel roll-forming machine: stable. During the production process, the equipment runs stably without material buckling. In case of producing horizontal studs that penetrate multiple vertical studs, the overall strength of the horizontal studs reduces due to the continuous web punch-out. If the roll design of the machine is defective, the material will be stuck in the machine frequently, and the troubleshooting will be time-consuming and laborious, resulting in unstable production and frequent job interruptions.
4)Principle four of purchasing light steel roll-forming machine: minimum waste. When the CSV files that output by the LGS framing design software input to the machine for manufacturing light gauge steel members, there will inevitably be scraped steel / cut-out in between different jobs.Some machines, the length of the scrap metal reaches 40-50mm. While the others optimized the machine control software which minimize the material waste. The material utilization rate between them is about 2% different. From the perspective of long-term production, this impact on production costs cannot be ignored.
In addition, it is necessary to consider the manufacturer's after-sales service and the overall cost, and choose the most suitable equipment to gain an advantage in the increasingly fierce market competition.
