Custom Solutions

Wrist Rotate

Concern
Customer was using several 90 degree rotate units on their overhead gantry to pick the part and rotate it during transfer. They had repeating failures as the units were not very durable. The lead time was long for replacement and when they broke there was a lot of downtime.

Opportunity
Design and build a heavy duty wrist rotate unit that was dimensionally interchangeable.

Solution
The new design had both a 35mm double row angular contact bearing and a 50mm deep grove ball bearing. A large robust coupler was paired with a front trunnion mount cylinder to reduce the stress as the unit rotates. The lead time was cut to three weeks.

Adjustment Slide

Concern
The plant needed to adjust the position of a set of extractor arms with each different part going through the line. The line would need to be changed over a few times a week and the current setup required an operator to find a ladder, unbolt the assembly, and then make an adjustment. The arms were about 6 feet long and with the part being 20 pounds a significant moment was transferred back to the adjustment unit.

Opportunity
Design and build a heavy duty vertical slide that would automatically lock and could be adjusted by one operator from the floor.

Solution
The slide was designed with two large shafts and plain bearings to both support the offset load plus absorb any shock that may happen during rapid load and unload. A self locking screw was used for the primary adjustment attached to a robust bearing assembly.

Custom EOAT

Concern
This customer needed a design and build for a new 20kg robot cell. The original concept required a quick change device and was becoming costly.

Opportunity

Redesign the process and submit a design & build proposal that simplified the process with one end-of-arm-tooling frame (EOAT).

Solution
After creating a basic robot reach study for the customer, a proposal was drafted that used only one EOAT. Upon receiving the purchase order, the engineering to delivery on the customer's door step was under two weeks as a lower cost then anticipated. This allowed for a quicker line launch with an added benefit of a single supplier from concept through build.

Pneumatic Dial Table

Concern
Most dial tables require a servo setup that includes the motor, drive, and programing. While this setup is idea with multiple positions, when only two positions are needed, it can be quite costly. The customer needed a lower cost system that was both easy to install and set-up.

Opportunity
Design a heavy duty, two position, pneumatic dial table with similar performance to a servo system.

Solution
With a main bearing over 10" in diameter, and capable of producing 600 in-pounds of torque, this design fit nicely into the customers application. The two long stroke externally adjustable shocks allow the precise turning once the load is applied. The NAAMS stops are easy to adjust with or without the dial frame. After completion of this special product, the unit was standardized and now available as one of Caromation's standard products.