Most electrical cabinet doors and side panels run 1.0–2.0mm cold-rolled steel with two to four folded returns. That thickness and bend count sit at the edge of what a welded-frame dobladora de paneles can handle in one pass — the frame casting type and bend-height setting you pick decide whether the machine forms your part or forces you into a second operation.

Why Cabinet Geometry Is the Starting Point, Not the Machine Spec Sheet

Electrical and control cabinet parts share a narrow set of traits: flat rectangular blanks, folded edges (usually 90° returns for stiffness or EMI shielding), and cutouts for hinges, latches, or cable glands added before bending. The bending step itself is usually simple geometry repeated at high volume — which is exactly the workload panel benders were built for, and exactly why a mismatch between panel size, material thickness, and machine frame type shows up as scrap or rework rather than a slow cycle.
Two numbers from your own drawings matter more than any brochure spec: the largest panel dimension in the batch, and the thickest material you run across your full cabinet line (doors, sides, and any structural gussets). Everything below maps those two numbers onto a specific bending configuration.

Panel Bender Sizing Table (Press Arm Type)

The table below is the STON Press Arm Type panel bender range, sized by maximum bending dimension. Bend height is fixed at three selectable stops — 170, 300, or 400mm — not continuously adjustable, so confirm your tallest cabinet side falls inside one of those stops before ordering.

The frame material is the detail cabinet buyers most often skip past. Welded-frame units in this line cap out at 1.5mm CR / 1.0mm SS at full bend. Casting-frame units, available from the B model up, take 2.0mm CR / 1.2mm SS. If your cabinet spec calls for anything above 1.5mm cold-rolled — a common floor-standing switchgear panel spec — the welded frame isn’t rated for it, regardless of what the servo control claims it can drive. This isn’t a marginal difference: pushing 2.0mm material through a machine rated to 1.5mm doesn’t fail gracefully, it shows up as inconsistent angles on the far end of the fold.

How to Map Your Cabinet Drawing to a Bending Configuration

1. Pull the largest flat blank dimension from your cabinet BOM. Compare it against the “max. bending size” column above — a 1600×1200mm side panel needs at minimum the B+ (1600) frame, not the B (1400).
2. Identify the thickest material across your part family, not just the current job. If doors run 1.0mm but structural back panels run 1.8mm CR, size the machine to the 1.8mm requirement so you aren’t buying a second machine in six months.
3. Match material thickness to frame type. Anything at or under 1.5mm CR / 1.0mm SS can run on a welded frame. Above that, up to 2.0mm CR / 1.2mm SS, you need the casting-frame variant of the same size class.
4. 4.Check your tallest bend return against the 170/300/400mm height stops. A deep cabinet base with a 350mm formed skirt needs the 400mm setting; there’s no in-between option on this series.
5. Flag any returns under roughly 15–20mm (small stiffening lips, cable-gland flanges) for auxiliary knife tooling — standard blades on this series aren’t built for very short local folds without the upper/lower auxiliary option.
6. If your line runs consistently above 1.5mm CR at high volume, ask about the three-motor W/X/Z upgrade. It’s built for exactly this case — thick-plate work that would otherwise strain a standard axis drive over a full shift.
7. Decide on loading automation last, not first. All models in this series keep an automatic loading/unloading docking port as standard, so a robotic arm or gantry can be added later without a frame change — there’s no need to spec automation on day one if your current volume doesn’t justify it.
8. Send the finalized drawing and material spec to engineering before ordering, especially if you’re quoting from a model name seen on a distributor site rather than a factory spec sheet (see naming note below).

Panel Bender vs. Press Brake for Cabinet Work

Compared with a manually operated prensa plegadora — still the default for many smaller cabinet shops — a panel bender removes the repositioning step between folds, which is where most angle drift on multi-bend cabinet parts comes from. That advantage is real but conditional: it applies to repeat-run cabinet geometry, not one-off or highly irregular enclosures.

Neither replaces the other outright. A cabinet shop running mixed one-off enclosure work alongside a standard door/panel product line often keeps a press brake for the odd jobs and puts the panel bender on the repeat runs.

Precios

STON’s product documentation does not list published price bands for the Press Arm Type panel bender series by model or configuration. Pricing depends on frame type, servo axis count, tooling, and any automation add-ons, so this is a request-a-quote item rather than a published range.

PREGUNTAS FRECUENTES

Can one panel bender model handle both 1.0mm door panels and 2.0mm structural sides

Only if it’s a casting-frame model rated to 2.0mm CR at full bend. A welded-frame unit capped at 1.5mm CR will handle the doors but not the thicker structural parts reliably.

 What happens if my cabinet has a bend return shorter than the standard blade length?

Short local returns — cable-gland flanges, small stiffening lips — typically need the optional auxiliary knife (upper, lower, or both), sized to the return length on your drawing.

 Is bend height on this series adjustable to any value?

No — it’s set at three fixed stops (170/300/400mm). Confirm your tallest formed dimension fits one of these before ordering.

 Do I need automated loading from day one?

Not necessarily. The docking port for robotic or gantry loading is standard across the series, so automation can be added later without changing the base machine.