STAY AHEAD OF THE GAME WITH UNIVERSAL ROBOTS E-SERIES

With the e-Series you can unpack, mount and program your cobot in less than an hour with no special electrical requirements.

Built with the future in mind, the e-Series is designed to grow in capability alongside your business, a spring board to improved product quality and productivity, so you will always be able to stay ahead of competition. Equipped with intuitive programming, versatile use and an almost endless list of opportunities for add-ons, the e-Series is able to complement production regardless of your industry, company size or product nature.

• 0.03mm repeatability on UR3e/UR5e, UR10e 0.05mm
• Built in Force/Torque sensor
• New Control Box and Teach Pendant Design
• New programming software that is even easier

learn more about Universal Robots

Advertisements

Does a Flex Feeding System Make Sense for You?

Tech Brief:

Flexible Part Feeding or flex feeding refers to a process used to feed or load parts into a manufacturing process. A flex feeding system is comprised of a flexible feeder (to feed the part), a vision system (to help the robot locate part) and a robot (to pick and place the part). The main advantage of a flex feeding system is that it allows for different parts to be fed into the same system with little to no effort on the operator’s part. With the availability of low cost robots and the variety of high performance flex feeders, flex feeding systems are hot right now but they might not be right for everyone.

Read this article for the three-step evaluation process used to determine whether a flex feeding solution makes sense for your application.

5 Unique Conveyor Solutions to Merge Product

Merging Conveyors are used to consolidate the flow of product from multiple infeed lines. Typically, these systems will merge the product into a single stream on one conveyor for the next phase in the production process.

There are many ways to merge product, such as: diverters and gates, product pushers, lane guiding, ARB Conveyors and more.

These systems are created to ensure facilities are running efficiently and eliminating bottlenecks while avoiding product pile up or overflow.

Choosing the right type of merge system depends on the application and characteristics of the product that it is created for. Each product is different and Dorner’s custom merge conveyors are engineered to your specific needs.

Here are some examples of solutions we’ve created in the past:

Heavy Duty Product Pusher

This system is merging two infeed lines using a product pusher. Baskets carrying product weighing up to 500 lbs are transferred onto the center conveyor in front of the pusher from either line.

Once the photo eyes confirm the basket is in the correct position, the pusher is activated and transfers the product onto the takeaway conveyor (not pictured).

Powered Side Guide Merge

While standard UHMW guides can often be used for simple 2-to-1 merges, some applications can benefit from a powered side guide. These can be useful in situations such as: heavy product that needs assistance over the side transfer, delicate product that you don’t want rubbing on the guide, and precision applications where you want better speed control through the merge.

The powered side guide can also be used to pull a gap between products.

Pneumatic Gate Merge

For this application, empty bottles were traveling down two different infeed lines and needed to be merged onto a single line. Pneumatic gates at the point of the merge can open or close, allowing one line through while bottles are able to accumulate behind the closed gate.

Pneumatic Product Squeezer

This application is very similar to the previous merge, but instead of gates, the system uses pneumatic squeezers.

When one of the infeed conveyor flows needs to be stopped, the squeezer activates and holds the rolls of paper in place. This allows rolls on that side to accumulate until released.

4-to-1 Merge

Using our sanitary AquaPruf conveyors, we designed this 4-to-1 packaging merge with servo motors and photo eyes to maintain fast and consistent product throughput. Since this system was made for a food application, the stainless steel conveyors are completely washdown for sanitation and food safety.

Dorner D-Tool Online complete conveyor configurator

Design and engineer a simple or complex conveyors to meet your specific needs in minutes.  You can construct a complete conveyor package or select individual components. This intuitive tool will walk you through every aspect of the conveyor from motor placement and belt type to accessory options.

Once you’ve completed your system, D-Tools will generate a comprehensive list of your components that you can receive via email. You can request a quote and select a variety of drawing options including 2D and 3D CAD assembly models.

Go to D-Tools conveyor configurator

Cognex DataMan 8070 Series Handheld Code Quality Verifier

Barcode verification is the process of grading the quality of barcodes. Barcode verifiers capture images and generate reports to demonstrate compliance to parameters within industry standardization guidelines.

The DataMan® 8070 series verifier is packed with powerful lighting options, robust grading algorithms, a high-speed processing engine, and a high-resolution camera to capture and grade the most difficult DPM codes. As the only DPM verifier on the market with 30-, 45-, and 90-degree lighting options, the DataMan 8070 verifier can easily illuminate codes on textured, curved, and even highly reflective surfaces.

MiRHook™ Automated Pallet Fork Transport

 

Within logistics applications, the MirHook™ mobile industrial robot is often used to tow a pallet with a pallet fork. The mobile robot can locate the pallet fork and transport it to it’s destination autonomously. In this way the employees only have to load and unload the pallet from the pallet fork, saving valuable time by not needing to do the transportation themselves.

The MiRHook supports the transport of loads up to 500 kg (1100 lbs) , providing exciting new internal logistics options for weighty or unwieldy cargos. The MiRHook robot identifies carts by QR markers and autonomously transports them as you define.

Industry 4.0, IIoT & Smart Factory Informative Seminar

Come hear the latest trends in automation and manufacturing with a hands-on look at mobile industrial and collaborative robots and check out the latest in vision and traceability.

Date: Thursday February 8, 2018
Time: 9:00am – Noon
Location: Holiday Inn, 1000 Busse Rd, Elk Grove Village, IL 60007

AGENDA:

• Basics in Industry 4.0, IIoT and Smart Factory
• Evolution of automation equipment
• The factory of the future
• How machine vision can improve your bottom line
• Q & A

Register at: http://www.rrfloody.com/Events.html 

Cognex Real Time Monitoring

Cognex Real Time Monitoring improves efficiency and throughput with performance feedback.

Real Time Monitoring (RTM) collects, processes, and displays information collected by DataMan barcode readers to help facility managers remove system defects and improve overall equipment efficiency (OEE) and throughput.

• RTM organizes data in easy-to-use dashboards that make it simple to track performance and analyze metrics.
• Overview of facility performance via read rates and throughput over time
• 1-D and 2-D barcode quality metrics identify when code quality drops, signaling that labeling or printing equipment requires attention
• Detailed trigger data including barcode symbology, module size, and decode time
• Automatic collection and root cause analysis of no-reads
• Tracks and compares reader configuration changes
• Heat maps track the relative positions of barcodes to identify required changes in reader configurations

Learn more…

Intelligent Actuator Rotating 2-Axis Wrist Unit

Ideal for reducing costs when 6-axis robot is not necessary

IAI’s Unique WU Series Wrist Unit design makes it light weight and compact in size.  
Equipped with a battery-less absolute encoder as standard, the WU Series is a low cost alternative, compared to 6-axis articulated robots making it ideal for reducing the cost of equipment.

Diagonal approaches and tip swiveling can now be performed with minimum required axis configuration which until now required a vertically articulated robot.

Cognex In-Sight 7000 Gen II Vision System

The first, truly-customizable vision system! With field-configurable modular optics, lights, filters and covers the next generation In-Sight 7000 can be easily customized to solve your unique application. Now you have the power to BUILD YOUR VISION, your way!

The NEW In-Sight 7000 is a full-featured, powerful vision system that performs fast, accurate inspections of a wide range of parts across all industries. Its compact footprint easily fits into space-constrained production lines and the unique, modular design is highly field-customizable to your application requirements.

• Enhanced performance keeps pace with increasing line speeds
• Field-configurable lenses, lights, filters and covers meet custom application requirements
• Familiar EasyBuilder interface simplifies set up and deployment