Atividade

For more than a decade, Gruber workers used separate pneumatic machines to cut and strip each cable. Eventually, though, CEO Pete Gruber grew tired of the constant maintenance on the machines’ check valves and cylinders. This led him to purchase the all-electric EcoStrip 9300 cut and strip machine in 1998. 

Made by Schleuniger AG of Switzerland, the machine’s reliability and infrequent need for parts has enabled Gruber to substantially increase its cable harness production over the past 18 years. In fact, this machine continues to precisely cut and strip cables after more than 6 million runs. 

Being able to run reliably for nearly 20 years and cut and strip millions of cables or wires is quite common for today’s automatic machines. There are two reasons for this, say suppliers. First is stateof- the art blade technology, which enables fast cutting, clean stripping and simple blade changeover for various size wires. Equally important are operators who understand, implement and optimize each machine’s cutting and stripping capabilities. 

FROM SIMPLE TO PROGRAMMABLE 

More than 90 years ago, Haaken Olsen—an up-andcoming engineer at Artos Engineering Co.—noticed an increased usage of insulated copper wire in automobiles, appliances and radios. He also saw assembly workers manually measuring wire to predetermined lengths, cutting it and removing the insulation from both wire ends. 

Believing manufacturers would be interested in buying an automated machine that could perform this work faster, better and more cost-effectively, Olsen went about developing one. In 1926, Artos introduced the CS-1, the first-ever automatic CAS machine. Olsen vowed to sell at least a dozen, but things went much better than planned. A new industry was born, and Artos alone has sold nearly 100,000 wire processing machines over the past nine decades. 

“Cutting and wire stripping machine machines from the 1920s to the 1950s featured mechanical designs,” explains John Olsen II, president of Artos since 2005 and great-grandson of Haaken. “Typically, three pair of fixed-position blades were used to cut and strip the wire. All setup changes were done mechanically by adjusting cams and moving blade spacers.” 

More-advanced electropneumatic CAS machines appeared in the 1960s and 1970s, allowing for push-button control of feeding lengths. Since then, according to Olsen, CAS machines have evolved in three areas to become much more efficient.