Page 10 - MetalForming February 2019

Tech Update
Cutting and Sanding Applications for Collaborative Robots
NC) flat vacuum cups and compact ejectors to apply suction to single pieces of sheet- metal in a designated stack at the pick- up site. The vacuum cups prevent wobbling, while a vacuum shuttle delivers the sheet to a worktable where a cutting wheel lightly scores the protective film on the surface of the sheet. Through precisely controlled cutting, the wheel only makes incisions where film must be removed to allow for mounting fittings, hinges, cutouts and welding work, leaving the rest of the protective film intact. A scraper then removes the scored film to reveal a residue- free surface before the Fipa gripper system places the sheet in a second designated stack for further processing.
Fipa’s SM-F-series flat vacuum cups feature a flexible sealing lip for optimal, nonslip contact with sheetmetal, and are suitable for almost all standard metal surfaces, including flat or textured stainless steel, varnished steel metal, coated plates and printed film. Fipa’s EMA-series compact ejectors combine a pressure regulating, energy-saving function with an electronic air-saving function to achieve high oper- ational efficiency for the Foilpuller, accord- ing to Fipa officials.
Foilpuller: www.foilpuller.de Fipa: www.fipa.com
New Servo-Driven
Presses in Capacities
to 30,000 kN
Simpac used the EuroBlech 2018 stage to debut two series of servo-driven presses. The compact MX-series presses provide capacities from 3000 to 10,000 kN, with SX-series presses ranging from 8000 to 30,000 kN. Presses from both series can be operated as a single press in progressive or transfer mode, as a double-press system for more flexibility, or as a fully automated press line. With its automation partners, Simpac can pro- vide turnkey forming systems.
Features include solid, low-stress annealed press bodies, FEM-calculated and optimized via individual, hot-spot analyses in areas subject to higher loads;
Dynabrade orbital sanders are now fully integrated with UR cobots through the UR+ platform.
Universal Robots (UR), Odense, Denmark, and sys- tems integrator ARC Special- ties, Houston, TX, have announced plug-and-play, pre- cision-cutting capability. ARC’s SnapCut technology uses a UR10e collaborative robot to manipulate a Hypertherm cut- ting torch to various cutting- path positions. Included in the SnapCut software, inte- grated directly on the UR+ Robots’ teaching pendant, are standard shapes—squares, rectangles, circles or C-chan- nels that can be selected for parametric programming. Once programmed, the oper- ator moves the cutting torch
to a few locations on the cutting surface, hits run, and then watches the sparks fly. “With SnapCut, we have developed a tool that allows metal fabricators to deploy UR+ cobots to cut nonstandard positions on-location with near plasma-table quality,” says John Martin, vice president with ARC Specialties. “We’re providing an easy
automation alternative to a process that today is primarily done manually.”
Sanding is another task now addressed by UR+ cobots with the launching of a robotic sander kit by Dynabrade, Clarence, NY. The kit includes pneumatic sanders, robot mount and a solenoid enabling robotic operation via the UR teach pendant. "Many of our customers are interested in mounting our tools on robots,” says Frank Lehman, Dynabrade’s head of engineering, emphasizing the benefit of providing Dynabrade users with a turnkey solution enabling them to mount the sanders on col- laborative robots. “Cobots are very affordable and user-friendly, allowing our end users to bring automation into their workplace without the expense and learning curve of
traditional robots.”
Universal Robots: www.universal-robots.com
Gripper System Removes Protective Film
The CNC-controlled Foilpuller from Foilpuller GmbH automates the film-removal process for sheetmetal used in white-
goods production, eliminating
tedious manual labor and
delivering operating-cost sav- ings to 97 percent as com- pared to standard vacuum generators.
Featuring rapid cycle times of 30 to 45 sec., the Foilpuller employs Fipa (Cary,
8 MetalForming/February 2019
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