C-Technik Maschinen- und Anlagenbau GmbH faced a number of challenges during the renewal and expansion of a strip coating line for a customer in western Germany. The cramped conditions in the hall made the renewal and rebuild considerably more difficult. In addition, adapting the new strip infeed and outfeed to the externally mounted coating system required extremely precise detail work.
At the beginning of the line's infeed is an uncoiler, which is preceded by an auxiliary coiler for the traction band. The uncoiler is followed by a straightener and two strip presses. In order to keep the copper strip under tension during processing and to ensure a continuous and uniform process, the end of the previously processed strip is fixed in a band press and manually welded to the traction strip at the welding station.
The centerpiece of the entry system is the looping tower, which can be used to vary the trajectory of the copper strip in order to enable coil changes with continuous and uniform processing. When a new coil is being processed, the winding tower is first filled by lengthening the strip by means of rollers. While the coil end is being welded to the traction band, the band that has accumulated in the turret continues to be fed into the strip processing unit. The line continues to run until the traction band reaches the coiler. The line then stops to transfer the coils from the coiler to the turntable. In the infeed, the end of the strip is welded to the beginning of the new coil. Then the whole process starts again from the beginning.
In the outfeed, the processed copper strip is guided through a strip thickness gauge and then wound directly onto the winding spool, without the need for an additional winding tower. A special feature of the winding process is that an additional paper strip is wound onto the freshly processed strip to protect the freshly coated copper strip.