What Factors Should I Consider When Purchasing a Press Brake?

by Pathlie Lee Business consultant

Do you buy that NC or CNC press brake for sale? Is your desired press brake certified by OSHA, CE or up to scratch with EU standards? What kind of X- or Y-axis programming/control system, electrics, machine/operator interface, and press brake control system software do you need for your primary metal shop’s needs?

Considering all these and more needs, choosing an ideal press brake can feel somewhat overwhelming. But it all starts somewhere, and the rest follows.

Here is the most important factor when looking to buy the best press brake like an expert.

What Type of Press Brake Do You Need?

This is so important for several reasons:

- You’ll know what type of bending each press brake type is best used for

- You’ll figure out the best press brake tooling to buy, and

- You’ll learn the technology each brake type provides and whether it is up to the modern, upgraded standard you need for more precise bend angles and less erratic bending action

There are several major types of press brakes available in the market today:

a. Mechanical Press Brakes:

Its flywheel provides the rated tonnage (bending power). Best used for coining applications that stamp the inside radius at less than the thickness of the material. You can also select the manual press brake type for bottoming—where the material thickness is stamped at 2o percent above the material's thickness.

Mechanical press brakes are also best supplied with American Plained tooling. Due to the type's safety concerns, slow setup, and need to frequently change parts for different types of bending, mechanical press brakes are on the decline but are okay for low-volume production shops.

b. Electronic Press Brakes:

Electric motors drive the ram, making the overall production fast, precise and power-efficient because motors stop running when the machine is not actively bending material unlike in other brake types.

Electric brakes are also lightweight (around 50 tons) compared to up to 300-ton hydraulic and mechanical press brakes. Although that may mean you may have to look somewhere else for heavy-duty applications. However, to multiply the forces output in an electric model, more shops have started attaching a series of pulleys, voiding the need for an anti-deflection or crowning device.

But to further support their precision-bending quality, you'll need to deploy precision-ground tooling. Plain tooling tends to offer less satisfactory bend-angle accuracy.

Today, you can purchase a computer numeric control (CNC) for exact control over several axes.

c. Hydraulic Press Brakes:

This is the most popular press brake type available in the market today. They are particularly popular with high-volume bending applications as well as heavy-duty applications such as bending bridge, ships, and large other construction parts. The heavy workload requirements see to it that the brakes can measure up to 50 meters in length and be as heavy as 3000 tons—but 100-300 tons is the most popular range.

Power comes from a compressed fluid. Yet, these are faster, higher-capacity, more precise, and efficient compared to the mechanical range but are typically more power-hungry than electronic and CNC types. You can also reverse the stroke at any time and vary the machines speed.

Bell crank or Single-cylinder hydraulic brakes are designed for America-plained tooling with typically have the simplest numerical controls (NCs). However, with internal-stop or stroke-limited hydraulic brakes, you can use both European and American-plained tooling options.

d. Computer Numeric Control (CNC) Press Brakes:

Also referred to as servo press brakes, CNCs power a belt and pulley mechanism using two synchronized servomotors to provide pressing power. The servomotors make it easy to control the stroke and speed of the ram precisely. That is what makes a CNC press brake a good choice for specialty metal bending shops that require high-level bending accuracy albeit at lower volume production than a hydraulic press brake.

Still, you can get a hybrid CNC press brake that brings the time-tested reliability of hydraulic or pneumatic press brakes—which use compressed air for a variety of applications such as bending, punching, forming, extruding, shearing, assembly, and drawing.

And there you have it. Hopefully, you are press brakes smarter now than a couple of minutes ago to inform your purchase decision.