SPRING MANUFACTURE

The Itaya Engineering Ltd. was founded by Mr. Reijiro Itaya in 1947. Itaya started designing and manufacturing machines in Tateishi, Tokyo where many small factories were located. Itaya remained in these same premises for just over 60 years as the city of Tokyo no longer permitted the construction of large buildings in residential areas.
Itaya has now moved to a new factory just outside Tokyo, closer to the Narita International Airport, with one large factory building instead of the three small ones in which it was previously housed in Tokyo.
In the early days, Itaya designed and built different types of machine to meet the various requests from customers – for example, automatic gear cutting machines, chain assembly machines, coil forming machines, etc according to the demands of the Japanese industry
The founder, Mr. Reijiro Itaya, was employed as a teacher at the Kuramae Industrial Technology High School and several graduates of this school were later employed by the company.
Mr. Ichiro Itaya, the current President of The Itaya Engineering Ltd. and eldest son of the founder, had a strong interest in microcomputer technology and, having joined the company after graduating, started to develop the world’s first computerized spring making machine.
One of his earliest successes was the development of the static capacity sensor type statistical coiling process controller which later become known as the SCD Series and these units are still commonly used, even today, because of their high speed and reliability, in spite of the fact that a new generation of statistical control has been developed in the form of an image sensor system.
The evolution of the computerized spring machine began in 1977 when the very first MCS-15 machine was introduced at the Itaya private show in Tokyo.
This very first machine was designed, in particular, for the production of extension springs and possessed a flexibility achieved by the fact that it was no longer necessary to grind the cams, which had previously been an essential skill required from a setter to enable him to obtain precise control of mechanically driven machinery.
This absolute necessity for cam grinding skills was eradicated by the introduction of microcomputers and servomotors, as it was now possible to carry out fine tuning simply by modifying the numerical values entered into the spring program saved on the computer.
Not only had this revolutionary change made spring setting easier, but it had also introduced the great advantage of repeatability as the operator could now load a previous program, similar to that which he now wished to produce, and simply modify it to suit his next spring.
In actual fact, these new concepts were not easily accepted by Japanese industry as it relied so heavily, at that time, on the manual skills of experienced spring setters. There were those, however, who did see the possibilities offered by the newly introduced CNC machines and they enjoyed great success, although this phenomenon was seen far more keenly in the European and American spring industries.
It is now legendary that Itaya exhibited their very first MCS machine at the international WIRE show in Basel and attracted huge attention from their professional audience.
The first epic advance could be seen with the production of a double torsion spring on the first computerized MCS machine. To be able to produce a double torsion spring the machine had to be able to move forwards and backwards, repeat the same production sequence in reverse, be able to precisely control the adjustment of both the left and right spring body diameters and be flexible enough to offer separate control of the wire feed and cam rotation axes.
As these computerized spring making machines were drawing more and more attention from the spring industry, demands from spring manufacturers also increased.
The second great advance was the production of a battery spring on the 2nd generation MCS-D machine. In order to produce a battery spring it was necessary, on the previous MCS machines, to grind the cams to achieve a continuous reduction of the spring body diameter to form the tapered body.
These ongoing developments further increased the attention that Itaya was attracting from the spring industry and led to ever-increasing enquiries regarding spring feasibilities.
In these early days Itaya had developed another series, the MCT range of arbor coiling machines. These machines had the advantage of a stabilized body forming method comparable to manually coiling the body on a lathe.
This further development was also integrated into the MCS-G series, which was released in 1993 and which also had independently motor-driven spinner axes and the possibility to control multiple axes independently – a concept which had been introduced on the PC series compression spring machines in the late 80s. These new generation machines were fitted with a 68k CPU which made it possible to program the various positions and movements of up to 6 different axes in a given time sequence. This was named “Synchronization” and was the result of the drastic evolution of the computer industry which gave Itaya the opportunity to revolutionize the software in spring forming machines too.
Thus, by the mid 80s, the technology, for example on the MCS-G series, had advanced to control 6 axes as follows:
Spinner axis – independently controlled axes which made it possible to bend at the desired angle and to coil the spring body around a mandrel
Linear axis – independently controlled axes which made it possible to control a single slide independently from the movement of the cam axis
Rotary wire guide – a rotating quill-type tool which made it possible to have an open pitch during the coiling of the body
Another advantage to the MCS-G machines was the integration of independent, motor-driven spinner axes which could carry out various bending operations without using the other slides.
The MCS-G series development was not limited to spinners and synchronization but also incorporated linear slide control. Previous to the MCS-G series, the eight slides fitted to each machine were all linked to one camshaft drive motor and their order of use within one rotation of the axis was therefore determined by their position and the shape of the cams. The linear servo axis was actually a separate servo motor which was developed to afford complete freedom of movement to one slide, independent from the one available camshaft. Through this development, the need for cam grinding was eradicated – even for battery springs.
The rotary wire guide was another outstanding development on the MCS-G series. Previously the use of a fixed quill in the centre of the working area had proved very restrictive to the setter who had to plan his layouts to work around the quill. But with the rotary wire guide it was not only possible to control the position of the quill so that it didn’t interfere with the spring production; it was also now possible to achieve an open pitch during the coiling of the body.
Itaya‘s masterpiece, the RX series on which a Pentium processor was added to the 68K CPU, was developed in the late 90s which means it has been on the market now for over a decade.
Nowadays all of these developments are available on all new machines and, in fact, several machines are equipped with multiple independently controlled servo motors which means that the setter no longer has to consider cam layouts.
When CNC machines were first introduced they were expensive, slow and difficult to use but in recent decades the costs have decreased, the speed and user-friendliness has improved and the new generation machines are now available for, comparatively, almost the same price as their original predecessors but offer better performance and are easier to use.
However, the fact remains that there is still demand for CNC machines which are equipped with a camshaft axis and Itaya has responded to this market demand for further development of cost-conscious spring making machines which still incorporate the Itaya quality standard.
Every year Itaya continues to supply machines into Europe and now has well over 1,000 machines in reliable and successful use at European customers.

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