Cobots from Universal Robots Aid Scott Fetzer Group September, 2017
www.us-tech.com Continued from previous page
that hands the robot a motor field part. The UR5 picks up the part, puts it in a holder, picks up a wire cutter to trim the wires, and then places the part for the UR10 robot to pick up and place on a conveyor for final as- sembly. The two UR robots work in tandem and communicate their posi- tion to each other through Modbus socket connections. “We can interlock multiple ro-
bots together and read through Mod- bus the TCP connections and robot status. We can also pass information along to other software packages, and collect data. It opens up a lot of doors to do a lot of things we’re just now be- ginning to look at,” says SFEG princi- pal engineer Jamie Cook. Before the robots arrived, Cook
was a little “antsy” about the new col- laborative technology, having not pro- grammed cage-free robots before. A UR robot comes with a touchscreen pendant for all programming. Direct- ing the robot arm can be done either through arrow keys on the screen, or by simply grabbing the robot arm and “teaching” it the desired moves be- tween waypoints. That eliminated the structured text programming Cook usually had to code when working with traditional robots.
Collecting Lifecycle Test Data One new application of the ro-
bots is in live testing of new designs, where the small motor manufactured at SFEG is placed in the customer‘s product. “We then use one of our mobile
robots to turn the product’s switch on and off, running it for a minute on, 30 seconds off, for the next 400 hours. It’s a quick way for us to perform life- cycle testing. We don’t have to set up a lot of equipment. The initial pro- gram took us only about 5 minutes to create,” says Bush. The robot collects data pertinent
to the test, such as max amperage, average amperage and the number of cycles completed, transmitting that data to storage. “It’s enabled us to actually en-
gage our customer in the testing as well, they’re excited to see us use new technology to push our design faster into production. It gives us an advan- tage over our competitors thousands of miles away in low-cost countries. We’re now winning orders against Chinese competitors and bringing back work that used to be sourced in China.”
“Let the Robots Get Carpal Tunnel”
As SFEG looked for tasks to au-
tomate, eliminating monotonous and potentially dangerous tasks was the number one priority. Another task now handled by the mobile UR robot fleet is filling epoxy into circuit boards. “In the past, employees would
make up a big batch of circuit boards and they would stand there and man- ually fill them with two-part epoxy and send them down the curing line. Today, the robot does that all day long, enabling us to go to a one-piece flow,” says Bush. “This is an example of an appli-
cation that would not happen with a stationary robot, as we have to move the robot in and out of the cell every day to dismantle the epoxy machine and clean up the cell.”
See at SMTAI, Booth 927
Page 23 Bush also emphasizes the safety
hazards now avoided on the motor field line by having a UR robot handle the wire cutting. “Cutting about 16,000 wires a day
by hand is potentially carpal-tunnel-in- ducing. We thought that was a great place to put robots.”
Thelma and Louise The wire-cutting UR5 working in
SFEG has deployed a fleet of mobile robots that aid human employees in their work.
tandem with the UR10 has been em- braced by the staff that named the new robotic team “Thelma and Louise.” Ac- cording to Sebrina Thompson, line lead at SFEG, the naming arose when per- sonnel first thought the robots were go- ing to “drive them off a cliff,” meaning
Continued on page 27
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