Rinco Ultrasonics Expands Tooling Capabilities

Rinco Ultrasonics, Danbury, Conn., has completed a significant expansion of its tooling capabilities for ultrasonic welding at its U.S. manufacturing headquarters here. The company’s investment includes the addition of 4000 sq ft to its operations, hiring of three new employees, and purchase of key machinery and equipment.

The expansion is in response to growing demand for faster deliveries and highly complex welding applications for the automotive and medical markets.

Rinco has brought ultrasonic tooling in-house in order to assume complete control of documentation, testing, and other key program functions for its customers. Rinco took over existing space at its Danbury site to accommodate raw materials and new equipment. The company purchased a Haas CNC milling center, a Trak lathe with a Proto Trak SLX controller, and several Trak K3 knee mills. New personnel include two full-time machinists and one full-time design engineer who also fills in as a part-time machinist.

The ultrasonic welding market is witnessing greater demand for large composite horns that have multiple elements. These include mother horns (up to 300mm) with multiple extenders (ranging from 2-20) which incorporate three-dimensional contours and milled geometries. A key challenge is designing a tool that not only matches the part geometry but also runs efficiently, according to Rinco’s onsite manager Steve Potpan. Rinco is also supplying contour milled fixtures and tooling refurbishment. Rinco’s experienced staff uses Solidworks as its CAD design software in conjunction with CAMWorks to create the tool path for the CNC equipment. The design process also incorporates the use of ANSys finite element analysis (FEA). Rinco reports strong interest in its new tooling capabilities from leading U.S. processors and manufacturers.