In the investment casting industry, the problem of unstable quality in the shell making workshop has always been a pain in the heart of every factory owner. If there is a change of ambient temperature, humidity and wind speed in the shell making work room, or if the manipulator is emotionally unstable due to life troubles, and skips a few steps in the shell dipping and sand hanging steps, it will lead to bad batch products. Minor defects will appear cracks, iron beans, and can be reworked by regrinding. But serious batch bulging, iron clamping, have to be directly scrapped.
According to statistics, 40% of the quality problems in investment casting originate from the shell making process.
We all hope that a godsend - an automatic shell making line - can circumvent most of the instability of the manual shell making line.
But it is not easy to introduce and implement a powerful, pragmatic and stable automatic shell making line. It is necessary to unite not only the external equipment suppliers, but also the three main departments within the factory, production, technology and quality departments, so that everyone can work together, use scientific and pragmatic methods, experience failures, record failures, learn from failures and optimize the process in order to achieve stable shell making quality.
After accumulating 19 years of experience in manual shell making lines, BesserCasting finally introduced the first automatic manufacturing line in the second half of 2020. At that time, the team did not know what kind of challenges we would face and could only take one step at a time.
Fortunately, after experiencing the setbacks and progress over the past year, we have basically been able to achieve stable daily production and consistent quality shell making results.
For example, for a minimum of 30g, the automatic line can produce 30,000-35,000 pieces products’ shells in 24 hours.
For 500g-1000g products, the automatic line can complete 5000-6000 pieces products shells in 24 hours.
And the above products all take 7-8 days in the manual shell making line.
The following picture is a video of the automatic shell making line and drying chamber of BesserCasting.
The automatic shelling line drying room not only keeps heat and moisture in all aspects, but also has 24-hour intelligent monitoring of temperature, humidity and wind speed, which also excludes the entry and exit of product trolleys in the manual shelling line drying room, resulting in the inability to ensure the room temperature and humidity.
Therefore, in terms of shell drying speed, stability and comprehensiveness, the automatic shelling line drying room is superior to the automatic shelling line drying room.
The picture below shows BesserCasting’s drying chamber of the manual shell making line
The manual shell making line needs to make 6-7 layers of castings and each layer of shell making needs to be dried for 24 hours to ensure 100% quality of shell casting, while the current automatic shell making line only needs 24-48 hours to complete all shell making and drying. Such a significant reduction in production cycle time has improved the delivery service provided to customers by Besser Casting to a higher level.
The shortening of the production period of the automatic shell making line is not only due to the insulation and moisturizing of the drying room of the automatic shell making line, but also due to the stability of the mechanical arm in dipping the slurry and drenching the sand. The consistency of the mechanical arm movement allows each layer of slurry to be evenly and consistently distributed on the surface of the wax pattern. Thus it can avoid the accumulation or deficiency of slurry during manual operation, and avoid the defective casting of large quantities after the casting of the shell.
But can an automated shelling line beat a manual shelling line? That's not necessarily true.
The advantage of the manual shell-making line is the delicate and flexible hands of the operator, while the robotic arm is always just imitating the human arm. Therefore, for products with complex structures, the manual shell line still plays a key role.
At the same time, the manual shell line also undertakes the task of small batch, multi-species orders, which is also the future trend of manufacturing order structure. Small batches and multi-variety products cannot be completed uniformly by the robot arm with consistent programming settings, and experienced operators are still needed to complete the shell making work.
The following picture is a video of BesserCasting’s manual shell line dipping and hanging sand
Therefore, in summary, although the manual shell making line cannot surpass the advantages of automatic shell making line in producing large quantity orders - short time, good quality and stable quality - the manual shell making line still has its advantages in facing small batches and multiple orders, and at the same time, the operator's subtle and flexible approach in handling complex castings is also The robot arm can't compare with it.
BesserCasting can not only provide you with short time, large batch, and stable quality castings for the automatic shell line, but also provide you with solutions for multiple, small batch, and complex structure casting orders for the manual shell line. If you have any questions about castings, please feel free to contact us.