Quick changing punchholders is the serious investment which could be around 5000 eur for the small 3 meters press brake. If you will purchase the press brake from top manufacturer which will cost around 100 thousand euro it will be around 5 percents option from the main price of the machine. But if you will buy the machine from Turkey or Asia the investment looks more serious.
First, why you need it and why according to our personal view it is much better choice than to buy the full clamping Wila system.
Every manufacturer todays offers optionally Wila clamping with the advertisement of the best possibilities for frontal loading of punches with the use of buttons. It is right but you need to notice two important things - punches with buttons will cost more, optional Wila system will cost more and mainly you should consider about Wila punches geometry - they are in general much higher than Promecam and the costs of punches itself will be more also. But if you will choose it you will get very nice system to use in case that you have enough daylight of your press brake to install tall tooling.
Now let’s return to Promecam system. It is the old and very popular system with very rich selection of press brake tools and in this case much much more possibilities to choose. But with the standard punchholders you have a big limitation of use as the only lateral loading so it means to load and unload the tooling you need to push all from the side. If you work with long profiles all other things are not important for you but if you deal with different even small parts and should work with different changes you have the necessity to change the punches at the middle of the machine or totally. And in this case you need the frontal system to change the tools.
What you will receive at the end. First, the save of time if you need to change the punches so it means that it will be around 3 minutes total for 3 meters machine contrary to 7-8 minutes with standard punchholders. Second, the changing of any tools frontally, for example in the middle of the machine within seconds without moving any punches from left and right and do not spending any time for it. Third - punch holders are the tooling and the changeable part so tomorrow you can move them to other side of the machine, install on other press brake or anything you want.
For sure it is better to buy punchholders directly with the machine, it is more comfortable in psychology when you are not making new big investment after the investment of the machine. But you can meet the fact that the purchasing from any press brake supplier will be more expensive because for all tooling options manufacturer will be just reseller who can sell to you any tooling with his additional margin. So basically we recommend to all customers who are purchasing the new machine to look the alternative offers for the press brake tooling and in our case punch holders, moreover we believe that our support will be also much better because these products are our main and the first job.
Mechanical, pneumatic or what else? Our personal opinion that mechanical clamps are more reliable and most recommended. You do not need to install them on the full machine and can just buy 2,3,4 at the middle. You can replace them and to move to the new machine. You do not need any connection, just the hands of the operator. And you do not need to touch the sides of the machine you do not need, so it is contrary to pneumatic version where you will open clamps for the full length.