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How To Choose? Press Brake Vs Panel Bender

Press brake vs panel bender: have you selected the appropriate machine in your workshop?

When it comes to the bending part of a sheet metal production line, the first machine that comes to mind is press brake machine. By using the press brake, the operator can bend sheet metal plate into the final shape. Some manufacturers also have come up with another feasible solution for part bending: a panel bender machine.

In the current sheet metal bending machine market, the panel bender becomes more and more popular. Although some panel bender factories claim the panel bender can be the substitute of press brake, this is not the truth. Both press brakes and panel benders have their own advantages and so it is necessary to clearly explain their differences.

What Is CNC Press Brake And Panel Bending Center

CNC Press Brake Introduction

Press Brake machine is a equipment used to bend cold metal sheets into various geometric cross-sectional shapes by using the provided molds (standard or specialized molds). CNC press brake is controlled by the CNC controller. The CNC system can automatically control the sliding block’s running depth, adjust the sliding block’s left and right tilt, adjust the rear stopper’s back and forth, left and right, adjust the pressure tonnage and adjust the sliding block’s approaching working speed. It can make the CNC bending brake machine conveniently achieve actions such as sliding block downward, jogging, continuous, pressure holding, return, and midway stop, and complete multi bending at the same or different angles with once feeding.

Panel Bender Introduction

The flexible panel bender is a new generation of fully automatic panel bending centers, which is a new product for sheet metal fully automated production. The flexible panel bending center does not require a mold, and can bend complex shapes such as right angles, non right angles, arcs, up and down combinations. With one positioning, panel bender can complete multilateral bending and panel bender is applied in the metal forming field of different industries.

Press Brake Vs Panel Bender

Because the manufacturing technology of flexible panel bender machines has been breakthrough in China, Chinese factory can provide high cost effective panel bender to the global market now. For this reason, panel bender becomes popular in the market now. Below the article introduces the difference between panel bender and press brake.

Speed Difference

The main reason for clients choose CNC panel bender instead of CNC press brake is that the bending speed of panel bender is much faster than that of CNC press brake.

The fastest fully automated bending process in the intelligent flexible bending center can reach 0.2 seconds per tool, greatly reducing the cycle time of multi sided and multi track bending, which is more than three times the speed of traditional CNC bending brake machines. The more edges and more complex the workpiece, the greater the speed advantage of panel bender.

Different Shape Bending: Press Brake Vs Panel Bender

Bend Box Shaped Workpiece

People who familiar with panel bender machines know that the speed of the servo flexible panel bending center is unparalleled in the production of traditional box shaped parts. Due to the bending caused by the panel bender center, these machines can produce boxes, lids, and other similar shapes very quickly and accurately. The panel bender machine can bend the entire side of the box at once, and it can even easily handle the return flange on the box.

CNC press brake machines can also produce problem free boxes, but this is usually an operator intensive bending process. Throughout the entire production process, tool settings and part operations are the same.

The panel bending center usually only takes half of the time compared with the hydraulic press brake machine to process such a part, but there are some limitations. For example, the panel bender bending will be limited by the depth of the box. Due to the limited depth and opening height of the throat at the center of the panel bending, when the box depth is too high, operator needs to use a CNC press brake.

Large Panel

Servo flexible panel bender is often the ideal choice for large panel sheets. It is not necessarily due to the complexity of the parts, but rather due to the larger size of the panels, which usually require multiple operators or auxiliary cranes to support the CNC press brake machine to complete the bending process.

At this point, using the panel bending center allows for direct loading of raw materials into the workbench, which can be processed by a single operator with minimal steps. The advantage of the panel bender is that it is easy to highlight on large panels, especially for the clamping of automatically set sheet materials.

However, it is also has the limitation of the panel bender to bend the large panel. Panel bender can only bend the sheet plate size upto 3200x3200mm, and the largest thickness is 2mm mild steel plate.

Small And Complex Workpieces

Processing extremely small and complex workpieces on CNC press brake may pose safety hazards. These small geometric shapes often force the operator to approach the tool with their fingers, creating potential safety hazards. When using a panel bender center for part processing, there is no such threat.

When bending more complex geometric shapes, the automatic panel bender machine is more advantageous because the operator can operate the parts during this process, which allows the machine to produce a narrower shape.

Internal Bending

For internal bending, the center of the edge is displayed as localized. For edge bending equipment, the most common problem is a component that is similar to a frame and has internal bending in the geometric structure. Due to the position of the gripper and curved blades, these internal bends are often difficult to generate on the panel bender. In this case, it may be better for users to choose to customize a high-end multi axis high-precision CNC press brake machine.

Safety

The intelligent flexible panel bending center does not require manual holding of workpieces, and the bending process is fully automated, greatly reducing the safety hazards caused by workers’ misoperation.

Automation

In terms of automation, the intelligent flexible panel bender has reserved rich interfaces, making it convenient to connect with upstream and downstream production lines. It can be docked with a robotic arm to achieve automatic integrated loading and unloading. At the same time, the cnc press brake can also connect with bending robot. Robotic press brake becomes more and more popular in large sheet metal processing factories. Both panel bender and press brake can connect with robot and loading unloading system to becomes the automatic production line.

Bending Molds

The intelligent flexible panel bending center adopts a universal bending mold, which achieves bending of various shapes through multi axis concurrent linkage and full servo control. The traditional CNC press brake machine needs a the first mock examination for each bend. It is more expensive to customize a special mold for each shape.

Conclusion

Both panel bender and press brake are the sheet metal plate bending machine, and they have some same bending conditions. However, they are not the substitute machine to each other. This article compares the press brake vs panel bender in different perspectives, including speed difference, different shapes bending, safety, automation and bending molds.