For over 30 years, Birmingham-based Candela Light has played a key role in major decorative lighting schemes in both the private and public sectors.
The 28-employee company, whichis one of the UK’s few truly independent lighting manufacturers, supports projects from early proposals and lighting designs, right through to commissioning and production.
Having experienced strong growth in the past year, Candela decided to re-invest some of its profits in the business.
This entailed replacing old machinery, including the company’s turret punch presses, which were ageing and had become a little unreliable.
Managing director Nigel Astley said: “We knew that technology had moved on, so we decided to assess the main players in the market to see about buying a replacement.
“At first, we thought about replacing the turret punches with a fibre laser profiling centre, but the representative from Trumpf said that, based on the type of parts we process, we would be much better off with a TruPunch machine — hence our purchase of a TruPunch 1000.”
Supplied by Luton-based Trumpf Ltd (
www.uk.trumpf.com), the TruPunch 1000 offers more than just punching; it can also form threads, make extrusions and bend flanges, allowing it to offer cost-efficient complete processing in a single clamping.
Mr Astley said: “Unlike our previous turret punches, which only had a couple of auto-index stations, all tools on the TruPunch 1000 — including Trumpf’s MultiTools — can be rotated through 360deg.
Furthermore, the machine is 50% faster than our previous ones — and we no longer have to remove parts from a skeleton frame and perform deburring.”
To eliminate as many secondary operations as possible, Candela ordered its machine with almost all of the extra functions available, including MultiTool, MultiShear, MultiBend, tapping (with breakage control), marking/rapid beading, engraving, deburring and ‘roller’ technology.
Installed in June 2016, the machine has been producing the metalwork for Candela’s extensive range of contemporary and heritage lighting products, lanterns, columns and brackets.
Although the TruPunch 1000 can process sheets up to 6.4mm thick, Candela typically processes aluminium up to 4mm and copper and brass up to 1.2mm. The company also manufactures parts from stainless steel. It makes to order, rather than for stock, and batch sizes can range from 20 to 300-off.
Press brake purchase
Having identified the TruPunch 1000 as the answer to its punching requirements, Candela also asked Trumpf to provide a replacement press brake and new manufacturing software.
“We wanted a single supplier, so that we would only require one training programme and one service contract,” says Mr Astley. “With this in mind, we invested in a new TruBend 3066 CNC press brake, along with TruTops Boost software.”
Mr Astley says that the down-stroking operation of the TruBend 3066 — as opposed to the up-stroking configuration of the company’s previous press brake — means Candela can use the machine’s bigger throat to accommodate larger parts.
“Furthermore, the 3-D visualisation technology offered by the TruBend machine means we can use unskilled operators to run it, while TruTops Boost — a recently introduced software solution — merges all the steps needed to generate sheet-metal manufacturing programs into a single system at the touch of a button.
The enhanced automation offered by this software means that creating NC programs for laser profiling, punching and bending is both quick and easy, as the calculations are carried out automatically. The software also includes full
3-D CAD design functionality.”
The new Trumpf technologies at Candela are helping the company meet increasing demand for its ranges of street, architectural, LED and heritage lighting.
Recent ‘landmark’ projects include exterior LED lighting for the £50 million Park Regis Hotel development in Birmingham, the Edgbaston Canal tunnel LED lighting refurbishment project and the supply of heritage lanterns to the Edgbaston Priory Club leisure facility.