Ask an EngineerHow Electric Actuators Optimize Pressing Applications
By John Fenske on May 5, 2025
It’s common for presses to feature hydraulic or pneumatic cylinders, but using electric actuators can optimize many press designs. Linear servo presses, which rely on electric actuation, eliminate noisy and leaking hydraulic and pneumatic components. Additionally, programmable motion profiles and precise force and positioning control allow linear servo presses to meet flexible, high-performance requirements for a wide range of applications.
Precise force and positioning is especially useful in manufacturing processes that require:
- Joining
- Riveting
- Fastening
- Cutting
- Bending
- Crimping
- Piercing
- Forming
Using a linear press for these applications takes advantage of its precision and control, ensuring part consistency, increasing efficiency and reducing scrap generation. These qualities are especially important when producing delicate or sensitive products like printed circuit boards (PCB) by preventing damage. Linear servo presses can also be used for different PCB bonding techniques like ultrasonic or thermal compression.
As another example, when constructing bearing assemblies a linear servo press performing seal or retention ring insertion won’t damage the assembly and will maintain proper alignment. The precision of a linear servo press is also beneficial to other applications that must meet stringent quality and performance requirements including medical devices, aerospace and automotive manufacturing.
Linear servo presses are also well-suited for plastic and composite molding because they allow for fine-tuned motion profiles to meet exact process requirements, optimize quality and reduce cycle times. Even when forming complex shapes, programmable motion profiles allow linear servo presses to deliver high-quality parts.
In addition to manufacturing, presses are also used in testing and quality control applications. Linear servo presses can perform material property tests for compression, tension, peeling and more. Their high control unlocks accurate and repeatable testing.
For real-world examples, see how some of our customers optimized their own press machines with electric actuators.
Automotive
Our customer manufactures automotive air bags and wanted to replace the hydraulic cylinders of its press machine to improve process control, reduce energy consumption and eliminate hydraulic fluid leakage. The system required continuous monitoring and adjustment to achieve desired performance, resulting in product inconsistencies, downtime and scrapped parts. Converting to electric actuation unlocked consistent, repeatable force and eliminated operator intervention. The optimization completely eliminated defective parts from the pressing operation.
Another customer manufactures hydraulic press machines for wheel bearings and upgraded the press to feature servoelectric actuators — unlocking improved process control and reduced energy consumption while eliminating hydraulic fluid leakage. Additionally, programmable motion profiles eliminated the need for operators to make multiple adjustments to the press machine, which was previously required to achieve desired performance.
Food and Beverage
A food and beverage customer’s dough pressing machine’s pneumatic components were a source of contamination. During product changeovers, operators had to move manual stops to accommodate the altered performance. By switching to linear servo technology, changeovers were possible without downtime because speed and pressure were controllable on-the-fly.
Plastics and Rubber
An automotive tire manufacturer previously used hydraulics in its tire inspection press machine, which would test an inflated tire by squeezing it under pressure. By upgrading to a servoelectric system, the customer eliminated the costly, noisy, and leaking hydraulic components which also required a high degree of regular, expensive maintenance. Not only was the new system more compact, but it also reduced energy consumption and eliminated downtime due to hydraulic maintenance.
Read our white paper to learn more, or take a look at our previous blog posts on servo-electric presses and their roller screw actuation in high-force applications.