An electrical roll forming machine turns steel coil into the profiles a power distribution network is built from: cable trays, busway enclosures, conduit channels, strut channel, and transformer tank panels. The useful part is that one cassette line can feed a cable tray plant, a switchgear builder, and a transformer workshop from the same coil stock.
Cable tray is the volume product, and it comes in four shapes. Ladder type carries heavy cable runs on two side rails with rungs. Trough type adds a ventilated bottom. Solid bottom (conduit tray) encloses the cable fully. Wire mesh tray is bent from cold drawn wire instead, so it sits outside roll forming. Rails form from 1.5 to 2.5 mm coil, and NEMA Class 20C is the class most export tenders ask for.
Busway and busduct housings route 800 to 6,300 ampere feeders between transformers and main switchgear. The housing clamps around insulated bus bars with fixed clearance, so fold tolerance is tighter than tray work and burr free cutoff is a product requirement rather than a finish detail. Strut channel runs 41 mm with in line perforation, and thin conduit channels form from 0.8 to 1.5 mm coil.
Transformer radiator corrugation is the margin product. Fold depth and pitch are rolled into 1.0 to 1.5 mm cold rolled steel, and the fold depth has to hold within a fraction of a millimeter because it controls radiator surface area.
Two standards decide export eligibility. NEMA VE 1 classes the tray by load and span for North America; IEC 61537 defines the load test most international tenders cite. Coating is settled separately, and coating weight per ASTM A653 belongs in the contract, not in an email thread. Indoor switch rooms manage on Z180 to Z275; coastal and petrochemical sites need 304 stainless.
On line output, punching density matters more than mill speed. NEMA slot patterns put a hole every 50 to 100 mm on a tray rail, so an undersized servo press throttles a mill that can otherwise run 25 m/min.
A single profile tray line starts near 45,000 USD. A cassette based line covering tray, strut, and busway runs 90,000 to 160,000 USD, and fully automated lines with servo punching and stacking pass 200,000 USD.
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