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DEDICATED TO EXCELLENCE: SERVICE • QUALITY • INNOVATION
ESTABLISHED 1953
As energy-intensive technologies like artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency mining expand, demand for electrical infrastructure is skyrocketing. Industries such as data centers are experiencing pressure to scale quickly, driving a sharp increase in the need for electrical components like bus bars.
For companies to keep pace with this rapid growth, it’s critical to have a reliable, responsive partner for bus bar manufacturing. Bus bars play a crucial role in electrical systems, and performance depends on precision fabrication—but the best partners can integrate bus bars into your assemblies, as well.
Discover how All Metals Fabricating delivers expert bus bar manufacturing and electromechanical assembly all under one roof.
Bus bar fabrication typically begins with one of several cutting methods, each offering unique advantages depending on requirements for thickness, speed, and cost. In our shop, the most common methods are:
Laser cutting offers the greatest production speeds of our methods, although it has slightly lower material utilization than other options. Our facility can laser cut bus bars up to ⅜” thick.
By loading bar stock into a punch press, material costs are reduced, but throughput is decreased because bar stock is loaded one at a time. This method is typically limited to materials up to ¼” thick. You can also run sheets of copper on the punch press, but you will have less material utilization.
Bus bars can, in certain cases, be saw cut and milled. This method is less efficient than alternatives, but it can be used when the bus bar is greater than ⅜” thick or extremely high precision is required. When possible, you want to avoid having to put anything on a mill, because the additional set up and programming time will drive up the cost.
Of the three cutting methods we use—laser cutting, punch press, and milling—laser cutting and punch press are the most common for bus bar projects. Balancing what is most cost effective and efficient to run should be consulted with our experts to avoid unnecessary extra costs in either material or processing.
Once we’ve finished that initial cutting or punching stage, parts move through several areas of our facility, including deburring, press brake forming, and finishing processes. When customers partner with us for electromechanical assembly, bus bars then move directly into the assembly and testing process.
Because we handle nearly every step in house, we can reduce lead times, cut costs, and simplify your project management. And when we do leverage our strategic partner network, it’s often only for greater efficiencies—one partner, for instance, has an auto-load bar stock on a punch press machine made specifically for busbars that can be ideal for certain projects.
At All Metals, our design for manufacturing (DFM) advice is central to our process. We always inform customers of any small design choices that could have an unexpected impact on pricing. This guidance can be especially important for fast-moving industries like data centers as they try to scale quickly and efficiently to meet demand.
Here are a few key tips we share with customers to optimize bus bar design:
Half-moon or semi-circle cutouts on the edge of bus bars can present manufacturing challenges on a punch press. These features increase costs and are best avoided unless critical to a part’s end-use.
When bus bars are initially laser cut or punch pressed, features that require additional milling can significantly increase cost and setup time. When possible, design the bus bars to be manufactured entirely by laser cutting or punch press and avoid precision machining.
While appropriate tolerances are a common DFM suggestion, it can be particularly important for bus bar manufacturing. Tight tolerances will require mill work, quickly increasing time and price. ±0.005" is typically sufficient for flat parts, and for formed parts ±0.010" to ±0.020" for hole-to-hole dimensions on bent sections.
Tin plating improves conductivity, and is often required for UL compliance. However, in controlled environments where UL certification isn’t required, skipping plating can reduce both lead time and costs.
Choosing a standard thickness in either sheet or bar stock will avoid a part needing to be milled down to the appropriate thickness. When designing the part, you should also choose a width from a readily available bar stock material and not add any requirements to the finished edge of the part. Both of these aspects will allow the manufacturer to avoid having to put the busbar on a mill.
There are countless applications for bus bars, and sometimes it seems as if we’ve manufactured for each of them. From data centers and electrical assemblies to power generation, switchgear systems, and industrial control panels, we bring experience and precision to every project.
With All Metals, you get more than a fabrication partner—you get a full-service team that can handle every step of your project. We even integrate bus bars directly into complete electrical assemblies, streamlining your supply chain and reducing vendor management.
Ready to start your next bus bar project? Request a quote today and experience how easy it can be with our sheet metal shop!
