Rotary Punch for Plastic Strip Material

[dmoore]

I've googled for hours in the US and China looking for a rotary punch that can punch 1/2" holes into .04" plastic material but I've not been successful. Any suggestions?

Thanks!

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[Jim Dawson]

Have you talked to these guys? Metal Forming, Rotary Tool & Die | Hill Engineering

[dmoore]

Yes, they replied with basically - everything starts at $80,000, if you are ok with that, let us know.

I'd suspect for steel that costs are much higher but for thin plastic, it should be pretty simple.

I'm looking at a max of around $20,000 for the machine with die.

[Jim Dawson]

I can understand why they might charge that much. Punching metal or plastic takes the same equipment, the dies are not really different, and it might be more difficult to strip the plastic off of the punch, especially 0.040 material, that's a lot of surface to grab onto the punches.

If you're not married to the idea of a roll punch, a much more inexpensive way to do this might be to use a high speed punch press and use a push-pull servo roll feed system with the servos synced to the press action. With a short stroke press (1/4''?) you should be able to do 600 hits / min or better. I built something similar to this about 3 years ago for a bit different customer application but the principal is the same.

[dmoore]

I can understand why they might charge that much. Punching metal or plastic takes the same equipment, the dies are not really different, and it might be more difficult to strip the plastic off of the punch, especially 0.040 material, that's a lot of surface to grab onto the punches.

If you're not married to the idea of a roll punch, a much more inexpensive way to do this might be to use a high speed punch press and use a push-pull servo roll feed system with the servos synced to the press action. With a short stroke press (1/4''?) you should be able to do 600 hits / min or better. I built something similar to this about 3 years ago for a bit different customer application but the principal is the same.

Jim - Did you just bid on making this high speed punch press for $20k?

[Jim Dawson]

Maybe I would need to know more about your application, but yes, I build specialized machines.

Send a PM if you're interested.