TM Robotics expands further into pneumatics market

A major UK manufacturer is being rewarded with increased output and profitability in pneumatic fitting (valve) production after installing three SCARA robots from TM Robotics

A major UK manufacturer is being rewarded with increased output and profitability in pneumatic fitting (valve) production after installing three SCARA robots from TM Robotics.

Conventional automation can be an unattractive proposition to companies manufacturing relatively small batch sizes with frequent changeover periods.

TM Robotics has helped one such company by automating its assembly process with SR-654-HSP SCARAs.

The SCARAs have allowed an assembly cycle time of just 7.8 seconds, 4.2 seconds faster than the manual method.

Combined with minimum downtime, by ensuring a quick changeover period between product variants, this provides a very favourable payback.

Changeover efficiency is achieved using a PC containing all component information.

The result is an average 'chip to chip' changeover time of just 15 minutes.

"The process being automated was quite complex even before considering product variations and changeover periods," explained Nigel Smith, Managing Director of TM Robotics.

Firstly, a vision system conducts an automatic check on the fitting body and SCARA 1 inserts a pre-lubricated air-ring and places the parts on a collet.

SCARA 2 then places a swivel nut into a 'nest' before positioning an air ring on top.

A pneumatic ram cylinder is then lowered onto the two parts to swage them to shape.

Finally, SCARA 3 performs a pressure decay test on the assembly and checks for the presence of the air ring.

A fibre optic sensor then verifies the presence of the collet.

Then, the system places the parts in one of four output trays, continuously counting the number being processed.

SCARA robots offer parallel processing for smooth, fast motion combined with an extremely sophisticated set of control instructions to suit all applications.

They offer traversing rates of 300mm in 0.63 seconds, carrying a 2kg payload; with accuracy provided by +/-0.02mm repeatability, and the ability to cope with 240 product variants, consisting of at least five components.

The robotic reinforced arm can handle up to 20kg at half-speed, or 10kg at full speed.

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