Deburring Tumblers
Deburring tumblers are containers that hold vibrating parts and deburring materials. These deburring materials are placed inside the containers to deburr, polish, and finish a variety of plastic and metal products. The containers are usually barrels or drums. The purpose of deburring is to remove unwanted burrs, scale, slag, rust, and other undesirable extra material from newly formed objects. Deburring tumblers (or vibratory tumblers) work well with high volume applications, as they have a higher load capacity than many other forms of deburring (though they can also service smaller loads). Their ability to handle large loads and finish parts on a mass scale has earned them another name: mass finishers, which they are sometimes called.
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Applications of Deburring Tumblers
In the arts world, deburring tumblers can polish items to perfection. In the automotive industry, manufacturers use them to make sure their parts will not cause system inefficiencies or damage. In the industrial world, the use of deburring tumblers ensures that manufacturing processes are just right. Commonly, deburring tumblers are used for the deburring of jewelry, rocks, electronics, electronic enclosures, printed circuit boards, shell casings, building materials, fasteners, tiles, automation and processing equipment parts, transmission splines, fuel injectors, castings, bearings, engine pistons, and a wide range of power supplies.
How Deburring Tumblers Work
Deburring tumblers consist of a drum or barrel, a drive, and a motor. The drum is usually formed out of a durable and hard material, like welded steel or stainless steel. Next, the drive may be either mechanical or electrical. Either way, both mechanical and electrical drives rely on a motor to supply the vibrations that facilitate this type of deburring. Therefore, both the motor and the drive are contained at the base of the tumbler. The drum can remain stationary while the base vibrates the parts because it is attached to the base via a set of springs. The way that deburring tumblers work is fairly straightforward. Parts are placed inside the drum or barrel, which is then filled with deburring media. After the deburring media is added, the tumbler moves side to side at high speeds, creating friction, vibrations, and continuous grinding between the parts and media inside. This is the action that removes the burrs.
Deburring media, the use of which is determined by the complexity and hardness of the parts being deburred, may be dry or wet. Dry deburring media consists of small, abrasive materials that add friction and, of course, abrasiveness to the environment inside the tumbler, which helps remove the burrs. Deburring media may be made up of any number of materials, but common ones include ceramics, synthetic plastics, steel, glass, and organic materials like walnut shells or corn cob. The angular and upward force created by the vibrations of the dry media results in a shearing action between the enclosed parts, which acts like erosion. This force is the major advantage of dry media. Wet deburring media, on the other hand, consists of a solid media, like abrasive grit, and a liquid like water. Together, they form a liquid deburring compound. Because wet media laps the parts, it produces a smooth polish. Note, however, that the use of wet media is not recommended with standard deburring tumblers because it requires a heavy amount of rinsing, which significantly reduces the machine’s service life.
Benefits of Using Deburring Tumblers
Because burrs and other defects are incredibly common byproducts of extrusion, engraving, machining, and forging, deburring tumblers are essential to have on hand. They can process both small parts like gemstones and large, bulky parts, such as chassis parts and intake manifolds. They can even handle fragile parts because they employ neither tearing actions nor unequal forces that can cause bending and distortion. Deburring tumblers ensure function and beauty and discourage the possibility of future damages, snags, and injuries. In addition, they eliminate other problems associated with burrs, such as shortened fatigue life, decreased fracture resistance, and areas of stress or weakness. Issues like these can cause considerable loss of material and funds to a manufacturer. All the while, they reduce finishing time.
Finding the Right Deburring Tumbler Manufacturer
Since they can be found in such a wide range of industries, for such a wide range of applications, it is easy to be unsure which deburring tumbler is the right one. The best way to eliminate this uncertainty and get started with a great tumbler is to contact a knowledgeable and skilled deburring tumbler manufacturer. A good manufacturer will take the unique specifications and requirements of an application and use them to produce a tumbler that will deburr to perfection.