High Payload Capacity: With a 3 kg payload capacity, this robot can pick & place various types of workpieces at vary high speeds.

Large Motion Range: The robot’s large motion range (1,300 mm diameter and 500, Z-stroke) broadens its range of applications in food manufacturing and solar- panel production lines.

High Accuracy: High repeatability ensures accurate pick & place and high productivity. (positional repeatability:± 0.1 mm, angular repeatability: ± 0.1 degrees.

Wash-down with Acid or Alkaline Cleanser: The arm is designed for wash-down with acid or alkaline cleaner, thus assuring hygiene in food manufacturing plants.

Easy Maintenance: The shaft-less design prevents mechanical trouble, resulting in easy maintenance.

The Kawasaki Robot in this cell is picking and placing roof tiles that have been stacked by a custom built servo driven stacker. There are two stackers in the cell because the cell is fed with two independent lines which run different product styles. The stackers stack a ridge style roof tile in fours vertically, then release all four which are picked up by the robot and placed, standing upright, on the pallet. The stacker handles in excess of twenty units per minute.

The overall cell, including all conveyors and both stackers, is controlled from a PLC Master which in turn signals to the Robot. The PLC is also talking to the two Stacker Servos and issuing their control commands. Their positions are stored internally in the Servo drives.

The pallets are fed to the cell under the robot base for space saving, and come from a pallet magazine. The pallet also requires a layer sheet which is picked up by the Robot during the cycle from a layer sheet stack located inside the cell.

The Robot gripper is fitted with four suction cups that are mounted off to one side. When a layer sheet is required the gripper goes to the layer sheet stack, orientated on its side, and when a vacuum is made it takes the layer sheet and places it on top of row one of the pallet. When the pallet is complete it exits the cell through a SICK safety light curtain which is a two beam device and has safety muting for the period of time whilst the pallet leaves the cell.

The pick and place head shown, picks up 6 containers, from a conveyor, accumulates them back to back and extends to the required centres for placing into the blister sealing machine; in excess of 90 containers/min are packed.

As well as the pick and place operation the containers are also checked for orientation, using sensors which verify the presence of an overprint from an Inkjet printer. If the orientation is not correct the sensors will miss the overprint and then reject the container. The reject device on the line is capable of rejection at 400/min.

]]> http://pakautomation.co.uk/dental-floss-pick-and-place/feed/ 0 http://pakautomation.co.uk/robotics-provide-safety-solution-for-hazardous-machinery/ http://pakautomation.co.uk/robotics-provide-safety-solution-for-hazardous-machinery/#comments Tue, 01 Jun 2010 18:11:53 +0000 admin http://pakautomation.co.uk/?p=1017 Robots that can distinguish between people and materials have a huge benefit in Health & Safety compliance for companies where this kind of accident can cause work stoppages, serious and even fatal injuries. Automation Robotics’ new Safety Muting System is a rapidly installable complete system for differentiating between persons and material insertion at dangerous machines. Category 2 or 4 safety devices and optoelectronic muting sensors, in conjunction with special evaluation electronics, form the basis of all muting applications.

Instead of numerous individual components from different suppliers, users acquire a partially or completely pre-mounted system designed to meet their needs. The devices are mounted on stable and adjustable carrier profile and completely wired up. Assembly, adjustment and commissioning can thus be carried out with time- and cost-savings. Suitable mountings and optional protective equipment round out the versatility of this all-in-one solution for muting access safeguarding.

Muting allows automatic material insertion in safeguarded areas. In order to achieve muting, in front of the access area to a hazardous point-of-operation or before a hazardous area, the muting sensors are arranged in such a way that only a very particular combination of signals that could be triggered by incoming material, switches to muting of the safety photoelectric switches. An immediate machine stop is triggered if this sequence combination does not occur, e.g. if a person has entered the access area.

The Toshiba Robot was selected for this high speed assembly task due to its exceptional repeatable accuracy and its compact size which enabled us to locate the robot inside one of the stations on an existing automatic assembly machine. The line has 38 stations and it produces Miniature Circuit Breakers (MCBs) at a rate of 24/min.

At station 5 the Toshiba robot replaced an existing pneumatic pick and place but had additional tasks to carry out within the same cycle time.

The original system could not come close to the required cycle time and the Toshiba TH350 was the logical choice.

The Robot was installed over a long weekend and interfaced through the Robot controller to the existing line equipment. For more details of this application get in touch.

All models are constructed to be compatible with either Class 1 or 10 (FS209E) cleanroom operation and cover handling from very small to very large and heavier objects, all at high speeds.

The NS series is a horizontal articulated arm robot designed for handling silicon wafers and with its flexibility in configuration, is ideal for applications involving cassette stations, equipment front ends, inter-equipment and intra-equipment material transfer.

For transporting large-sized panel displays, the telescopic type robot, TL series is the solution with its capability of handling from 680 x 880mm up to 1000 x 1500mm large PDP glass sizes.

The TS series robot combines a horizontal articulated arm with a choice of telescopic vertical positioning over 380mm to 1590mm.

The FC series is a compact, six-axes high-performance robot having a 3 degrees of freedom wrist with compound movement profile making it possible for handling of objects at virtually any angle. Its flexibility in movement makes it highly suitable for complex moves in the cleanroom environment in assembly or work placement and removal.

With payloads available from 2 Kg to 60 Kg, this comprehensive range of cleanroom robotic units allows Kawasaki to cover the majority of applications that arise in the cleanroom production area.

The containers are taken from a puck used in the upstream operation for filling capping and labelling containers. The puck is gated into position and the containers are picked out at speeds which allow 40 per minute to be placed into an offline jig to assemble a collation of the required number of containers.

Once collated in batches of two and four, a second robot places the collated product into an automatic bander. The products are then banded and released onto the outfeed conveyor.

The Toshiba robot was chosen due to its ease of programming, its high speed and repeatable accuracy. Line efficiencies have reached 99.94% since installation. The customer specified a MMI for the cell and a touch screen was fitted to relay which product is running, the MMI also reports the diagnostics from the robot and the current status.

The system uses an industrial robot on a skid mount heavy duty base, supplied complete with a short infeed conveyor, and custom tooling to suit the product being handled.

Sliding Doors enable the operator to take out the filled pallet and place in the new pallet. Two pallet build locations are in the cell and each side can be independently accessed whilst the robot continues to build on the opposite side.

The system can handle layer sheets, and layer sheet locations can be provided on both sides of the system.

Many companies are now embracing Robot Technology for the first time due to the ongoing need to reduce costs and increase efficiency. The Pak Automation Group continues to focus on Automation For Industry with the emphasis on delivering creative solutions with a short Payback period – often less than 14 months!

PAK Automation  recently completed the successful installation of a Kawasaki Four Axis Palletising Robot model ZD 130.

The Kawasaki Robot in this cell is picking and placing 15kg packs from a conveyor and placing them onto one of two pallets. The cell configuration is such that the operator can enter and exit either side of the enclosure to remove one pallet while the second pallet is being built. The integrity of the safety in the cell is maintained by incorporating Sick light curtains, therefore allowing continuous free-flow of product.

Estimated line efficiencies at this site will improve by 20% when the manufacturing process is modified and the output is increased.

Part of the PAK Group, PAK Automation UK exclusively incorporates Erwin Sick sensors, light curtains and bar code readers on all systems supplied. The Sick range of sensors offer security and piece of mind to employers, by incorporating Sick equipment you are guaranteed quality and many years of experience.

]]> http://pakautomation.co.uk/robotic-palletising-cell-for-15-kg-boxes/feed/ 0 http://pakautomation.co.uk/robot-cell-for-loading-an-automatic-flywheel-press/ http://pakautomation.co.uk/robot-cell-for-loading-an-automatic-flywheel-press/#comments Tue, 01 Jun 2010 17:12:12 +0000 admin http://pakautomation.co.uk/?p=986 PAK Automation UK recently completed the successful installation of a Kawasaki Six Axis Robot model Fs 20N for a healthcare manufacturing company running a three shift cycle.

The Kawasaki Robot in this cell was designed by PAK Automation UK for picking and placing sealed blister packs which have been sealed on an RF Welder and transferred to a servo driven transfer mechanism to load a Flywheel Press.

The tooling on joint 6 of the robot is twin tooling, enabling the robot to pick up two blisters at a time and release them individually, this design was critical in achieving the required cycle time of twelve cycles a minute.

The Kawasaki robot was chosen due to its ease of programming, its flexibility, the simple operation interface and repeatable accuracy. Line efficiencies have significantly improved since installation, so much so that the customer has now decided to invest further in PAK Automation UK.