Pressure cylinder valve assembly

Year of realisation

2022

Number of pieces delivered

Industry

Metal fabrication, Consumer industry

Implementation time

35 - 45 CW

Cycle time

10s/pc

Estimate budget

Cat. 300k - 350k EUR

Automated operations

Handling, Measuring, Pressing, Assembly, Optical inspection, Camera guidance

Technical standard

Fanuc, Keyence, Siemens, Festo, Schunk, Flexibowl

Motivation for automation

The customer specializes in the production of cylinders for fire extinguishers. Due to the nature of the final product - a part of the fire extinguisher, maximum attention is paid to 100% functionality of the device. Due to the enormous production volume, the requirement for zero tolerance of product error and the shortage of workers on the market, full automation of the process was resorted to. Due to the modernization of safety standards, the customer assessed the real risk of changing the production process. Given this need to react to possible changes in the future, the customer chose automation in the form of the HXG platform, which would allow them to react to changes better than a single-purpose machine.

Project description.

The subject of the implementation was the development and supply of equipment for the assembly of a family of valves for pressure cylinders with connection to an automatic cylinder filling process with assembly of the manufactured valves. The equipment can work both in cooperation with the production line and independently for the production of valves as spare parts for manual assembly.

In view of the customer's need for rapid response to change and a broad product portfolio, the equipment was designed on the HXG platform - a reconfigurable robotic platform in configuration:

HXG Core - Fanuc (centre) with dedicated gripper in combination with a rotary table
Module 1 - Component 1 input - flexibowl for a wide range of valve body types
Module 2 - Component Input 2 - camera guided scara robot with conveyor system
Module 3 - Component Input 3 - vibratory feeder
Module 4 - Press module
Module 5 - Component presence check
Module 6 - Transition module to the production line

Process Description:

In Module 1, the valve body is grasped from the flexibowl by a camera-guided robot and founded into the rotary table
In Module 2, the membrane is grasped by a camera-guided scara robot and founded in the valve body in the turntable
In Module 3, a vibratory feeder feeds the ring into a semi assembly
In module 4, the components are pressed into the valve body
In module 5 the output check is carried out
In module 6 the final product is removed by the robot and handed over to the manipulator, which moves the valve to the cylinder
The device collects data and communicates with the higher-level ERP system