Electric.ie September/October Edition

58 ELECTRIC.IE • The M agazine & Website for the Irish Electric al Industry • Rittal & Eplan: Your partners for sustainable panel building and switchgear manufacturing. Rittal & Eplan: FUTURE FORUM future-forum.co.uk Join Rittal & Eplan 6th October 2021 for a virtual event where we’ll discuss the futur e of automation an d the latest digital trends Rittal T he task of machining enclosures, housings and mounting plates takes switchgear manufacturers a lot of time if they have to carry out the work by hand. It can easily add up to four hours or more – reading through plans, marking out holes, tapping threads, deburring cut-outs and then cleaning the machined parts. In a small company that doesn’t have a dedicated metalworking department, electricians and switchgear engineers end up doing the work, which takes up valuable time that they lose when it comes to building and wiring the switchgear. The Perforex MT has an automatic tool changer and tool magazine that can hold up to 21 tools. It takes care of all work in a single pass, without operators having to intervene, and can machine all materials generally used in switchgear, such as steel, stainless steel, aluminium, copper and plastic. Enclosures made of ‒ Milling, drilling, thread tapping – there are very few switchgear manufacturers who love metalworking. Fortunately, there is a solution! Automated machining centres such as the Perforex MT can help. The following three tips show how it can be used to its full advantage. Author: Mark Guest - Product Manager for Power Distribution Systems. The ABC of milling stainless steel can be machined better and more ef ciently on the Perforex LC. 75 PER CENT FASTER State-of-the-art milling machines can cut machining time by up to 75 per cent. The savings are even more impressive when it comes to laser machining systems, which cut the processing time for steel enclosures by up to 85 per cent. When working with the Perforex MT, there are a few tips that can help companies achieve these savings: Clamping on the Perforex MT: With the right accessories, panels can be clamped in place so as to reduce vibrations and bulging. The end result is that tools last longer.