The importance of knowing your open height and stroke when selecting and ordering tooling, as well as when bidding on contracts, cannot be emphasized enough. These two items are often overlooked and when ignored they can cause significant problems in your application. Every press brake has a defined amount of open height and stroke, and knowing them will save you wasted effort and money.
Measuring Open and Closed Height
To determine the open height, measure from the bottom of the upper beam to the top of the lower beam when the press brake is in the fully open position. Keep in mind that any holders and/or adapters that you have in your machine are consuming some of the available open height. To find your closed height, which is needed to determine your stroke, measure from the bottom of the upper beam to the top of the lower beam just as you did for the open height, except this time measure the distance when your press brake is in the fully closed position.
Determining Stroke
The stroke is the amount of travel that occurs from a completely open machine to a completely closed machine. To find the stroke, you simply subtract the closed height from the open height.
Other Considerations:
- Consider the amount of space between the punch tip and the top of the die when making your final tooling selection.
- If your brake is overloaded with tooling it will be difficult, or potentially impossible, to remove the formed material.
- When forming deep channels or boxes, more open height is typically required to accommodate the taller flanges.
You now should have enough information to determine the maximum height of a punch and die combination that would properly fit in your brake. For more information on measuring the open height and stroke on your machine, please contact your local Wilson Tool sales engineer or contact a Bending Tooling Technician at 800-445-4518 or [email protected].
February 14, 2020