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Getting a grip on the awkward squad
Some vacuum lifting systems are decidedly more versatile than others, says Chad Phillips, Commercial Director at Simmatic
tightly wrapped so the wrapping fi lm may move when the lips come into contact with it, preventing a good seal from being achieved. Because only one cup is being used to lift the pack, a poor seal will compromise the vacuum, and the pack will be dropped.
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n every industry today, there’s constant pressure to increase productivity and drive down costs. Undeniably, handling products manually is both ineffi cient and expensive but sometimes switching to automatic handling is not easy, especially if the products in question are loosely wrapped or inconsistently presented to the handling system.
In such cases, rather than develop complex and costly mechanical contrivances to grip and lift the awkward products, machine designers often fi nd that vacuum technology off ers a better and more cost-eff ective solution. To get the full benefi ts of this versatile technology, however, a little thought and insight is necessary.
Awkward? Not really! Consider the need to pick up rolls of biscuits that are loosely wrapped in fi lm, and place them in a carton for shipping to the retailer. Because the fi lm is slippery, the biscuits are fragile and the packs cylindrical, devising a purely mechanical solution is diffi cult. Designing a vacuum head to pick up and move the packs is much easier but, as we’ll see, there are some potential pitfalls.
It might seem that the ideal solution is an electrically-driven vacuum pump, used in conjunction with a rectangular vacuum cup to fi t the biscuit packs. But there’s a problem. The biscuits are not
10 September 2020 | Automation
This approach has two other shortcomings. The fi rst is that it is impractical to start and stop the vacuum pump as each pack of biscuits is lifted, so it runs continuously, which is wasteful of energy. The second issue is that the vacuum cup will need pipework connections to the pump, and such connections are always prone to leakage, which further degrades effi ciency. An effi cient and cost-eff ective vacuum- based solution is possible, however – all that’s needed is to take a rather diff erent approach. The fi rst step is to replace the rectangular vacuum cup with, say, three circular ‘magic’ cups. Each cup will cover the width of the pack, and the three between them will cover the length. The second step is to replace the vacuum pump with three point of use vacuum generators, one for each cup.
The compact vacuum generators are typically 10 to 50mm in diameter and around 80mm long. They are powered by compressed air and have no moving parts. They are small and light enough to be mounted directly on the cups, so there is no need for connecting pipework. The vacuum generators can also be turned on and off instantly, simply by controlling the compressed air supply, so they are very effi cient and lightning fast. With this arrangement, if one of the cups fails to seal when lifting a pack of biscuits, the other two cups are unaff ected, so the pack will still be held securely. In
summary, this arrangement provides a solution that is reliable, cost-eff ective, energy-effi cient and virtually maintenance free.
The Magic Gripper
The Magic Gripper is an important vacuum handling device that uses compressed air accelerated across multiple stages to take a positive pressure and create a negative one – vacuum. The vacuum is then used to evacuate the small area between the generator and cup face; see images left and below. The integral cup makes the seal on the work piece or product to create the hold. Once gripped, the work piece can be transferred via the robot or automation equipment. The gripper is confi gurable, so that the size of body (therefore the size of vacuum fl ow) can be increased and decreased as needed. The Magic Gripper can be used to handle food directly, the packet or container the food goes into, the box or ingredient containers, or the boxes the packets are loaded into for the outlet. Anyone creating food in bulk could use this as part of an automated process. The Magic Gripper is a unique item that simplifi es and economises an end of arm tool (EOAT) solution to exactly what is needed, eliminating waste created in industry by over- or under-specifi cation of vacuum handling equipment.
CONTACT:
Simmatic
www.simmatic.co.uk
automationmagazine.co.uk
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