Our customer, a major bicycle manufacturer, needed to automatically receive tubes directly from the existing tube cutting machine, punch two holes, rotate the tube 90 degrees & stencil the bicycle's serial number without the dirty product affecting the quality of the finished part or the performance of the equipment.

Sunshine AUTOMATION & TOOLING designed & fabricated this Bicycle Frame Support Tube Machining System to utilize a "walking beam" transfer system for accurate part placement throughout the process. We specially designed die heads to support the tubes from the inside diameter while punching. Hydraulic stencil station provided consistent serial number depths.

Special considerations included:

• Punch two 3/8" diameter holes with the minimum burr remaining on the inside of the product
• Stencil station must provide sequential serial numbers
• Punched holes must be located 90 degrees from the serial number location
• Machine cycle-time requirement of 3 seconds must be maintained along with a 98% machine efficiency rating