"Drop in the Cobot Feeder where you need it, and immediately start using it."
Easy to install, program, and operate
- Installation: For the initial install of the Cobot Feeder system, there is some electrical and integration engineering required to get the robots and CNC machines communicating. This includes having a general understanding of the wiring within CNC machines, and then pulling the correct relays and confirming the M-codes are working. Once everything is hard-wired and synched, using the cobot and Cobot Feeder is relatively easy.
- Parts processing: A typical changeover includes replacing the parts trays, loading the program, and depending on the part, swapping out new cobot grippers. While each new part will have its own unique programming, once that is saved in the system it can be easily accessed and reloaded. For new parts, writing code involves positioning new points on the cobot and reconfiguring that into the machine. This can take up to thirty minutes and sometimes more depending on the complexity of the CNC machine.
- Machinist Roles: Within the Cobot Feeder system, machinists expand their responsibilities and become managers, moving from station to station and checking the quality of the parts. Here, repetitive tasks are reduced while efficiency is increased.
"Repeatability issues are the number one killer of successful cobot operations."
Lessons learned
- Standardized codes: One of the issues we ran into when implementing cobots was the problem of multiple engineers programming the robots in several different styles. This lack of consistency led to confusion and much longer programming. To remedy this, we started enforcing standardized ways to code the cobots, creating uniform templates.
- Repeatability: The number one killer for successful cobot operations is lack of repeatability. For our development team, this was a key problem that our Cobot Feeder needed to address. For example, when the Cobot Feeder removed the finished parts tray and pulled the next tray in line, it needed to return the tray to the same exact position. After several iterations, we were able to fine tune the Cobot Feeder to run without any supervision.
- Efficiency: The payoff is extremely high cobot efficiency. Machine operators can set up 17 trays to run overnight for continuous, lights out cobot production!
"Lights-out production is setting up a machine at the end of a shift and then going home for the day."
Lights-out production
Lights-out production is setting up a machine at the end of a shift and then going home for the day. The next morning, the entire job is done. Without a Cobot Feeder, a cobot may only run for thirty minutes to an hour with a single tray. With our Cobot Feeder, cobots can continuously cycle through seventeen trays and achieve overnight productivity.
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