Progressive Blanking Die For Aluminum Heat Sink Fins

The strip enters from the left and passes through a pilot station that locks the strip position before cutting. The blanking punches are arranged in two rows, so the fins come off the strip in a staggered layout. This layout uses more of the strip width and reduces the amount of leftover scrap between parts.

Aluminum tends to stick to punch faces, so the punches have a special surface treatment and the stripper pads are set close to the cutting edge. The stripper pushes the strip down while the punch goes up, which peels the material off the punch tip. This prevents galling and keeps the fin surface smooth.

The fins fall through the die shoe into a stacker that aligns them by their edges. The stacker can be adjusted for different fin lengths without changing the die. For heat sink makers, this means one tool can run several fin sizes by swapping punch rows, which lowers tooling cost for new product series.

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