Gantry techniques utilizing ServoBelt expertise can present the automotive business with flexibility at a fraction of the price of rack-and-pinion techniques. Supply: Bell-Everman
Overhead pick-and-place gantries are an vital a part of fashionable automotive crops, shifting and positioning elements with the pace, precision, and reliability that high-volume manufacturing calls for. Historically, producers have confronted an equipment-selection dilemma, with the business dominated by heavy-duty techniques constructed from huge metal fabrications. Designed for excessive payloads, these overbuilt techniques come from massive tools suppliers who provide sturdy engineering at a premium value, prolonged lead occasions and restricted room for personalization.
Small and midsize automotive purposes, nonetheless, don’t require such excessive capabilities, and in these instances, the outsized techniques symbolize a crucial mismatch. Compounding this problem, the business’s fast-moving manufacturing atmosphere calls for suppliers who can adapt rapidly, customise gantry techniques to particular software wants and ship inside aggressive time frames — necessities that many massive, established tools producers are unable to fulfill.
Fortuitously, a movement management system has emerged to fill this hole. Gantry techniques that includes ServoBelt expertise ship the industrial-grade sturdiness and customizability automotive manufacturing requires — at a fraction of the price of conventional rack-and-pinion techniques and with lead occasions which can be usually lower than half of these of bigger suppliers.
Equally vital, superior beam engineering using T-slot extrusions ensures ServoBelt techniques meet the structural efficiency requirements producers count on from conventional rack and pinion tools.
For these causes, ServoBelt movement management expertise allows automotive producers to implement superior overhead automation with out compromising on the efficiency their manufacturing calls for.
Designing an overhead gantry for an automotive provider
Progressive Machine & Design (PMD), a {custom} automation firm in Victor, N.Y., was tasked with designing an automatic manufacturing line for a Tier 1 automotive provider. A part of a diesel engine camshaft manufacturing operation, the road would come with a pick-and-place gantry system to move elements by a number of machining operations.
The manufacturing line consisted of sequential machining operations, with 4 to 5 machines at every stage. The gantry’s perform was to deal with the camshafts, from uncooked inventory to remaining product, transporting them between the varied machining facilities.
The system was designed to choose up the uncooked camshaft blanks and ship them to the primary set of machines. From there, it could transfer the elements by completely different operations, together with grinding, lathing, and different machining processes. The gantry was designed to interface with the top-loading machining facilities and to exist above the machines, saving precious ground area.
The core problem throughout the design course of was to engineer a sturdy overhead gantry system that would navigate a decent plant format, deal with a two-camshaft payload weighing roughly 80 kg (176.3 lb.), and supply exact positioning for half supply into the machines.
Gantry-based robotics can transport supplies throughout manufacturing processes. Supply: Bell-Everman
ServoBelt drive delivers efficiency
For its gantry system, PMD included ServoBelt expertise — a linear drive system that mixes the reliable “rack and pinion” drive methodology with precision and anti-backlash traits due to a singular belt design. ServoBelt’s key options, corresponding to its ease of customization, excessive efficiency, and avoidance of overly greased metal racks, made it an appropriate selection for this mission.
Design flexibility and customization: Not like inflexible, standardized techniques, ServoBelt expertise allowed PMD to customise the gantry’s dimension, top, and beam span to suit the precise plant format constraints.
This flexibility was a crucial issue that “tipped the scales” in ServoBelt’s favor, in keeping with Brent Stratton, chief mechanical engineer at PMD.
Excessive efficiency with out over-engineering: ServoBelt delivered the required efficiency specs with out pointless over-engineering. Although able to even tighter precision, it offered the mandatory quarter-millimeter positioning accuracy and will deal with high-speed journey, working at 3 m/s (6.7 mph) — effectively inside its functionality of 4 m/s (8.9 mph).
Lengthy-distance capabilities: A key benefit of ServoBelt is its distinctive belt-rack design, which eliminates belt stretch over any journey distance. This characteristic allowed PMD to create an extended gantry that spanned a number of machining facilities with out sacrificing positioning accuracy.
“Whereas we don’t usually make techniques this lengthy, we’d often attain for a continuous-loop or OMEGA-type drive,” Stratton mentioned. “However the fantastic thing about the ServoBelt belt-rack system is that it takes all of the stretch out of the equation. You may go actually lengthy with out worrying about belt stretch in any respect.”
Future scalability: The modular nature of ServoBelt expertise helps future growth. If the operation finally requires extra machines, for instance, the gantry might be prolonged to accommodate the expanded format, offering a long-term and adaptable answer.
ServoBelt has a design to remove belt stretch over any journey distance. Supply: Bell-Everman
Composite beam meets the business’s structural requirements
Whereas ServoBelt offered the movement management expertise, its beam design represented an equally crucial engineering problem. Automotive producers used to conventional rack-and-pinion techniques have particular expectations relating to structural efficiency.
Composite aluminum beam affords structural efficiency. Supply: Bell-Everman
To satisfy these necessities, the Bell-Everman engineering group performed in depth “beam science” work. It analyzed and optimized a number of structural traits like beam stiffness, deflection, torsional stiffness, torsional deflection, and space second of inertia. Every parameter performs an vital function in making certain the gantry maintains positioning beneath load and all through its journey vary.
Not like Bell-Everman’s conventional single-piece extrusion designs, this software required a brand new composite-beam building to attain the mandatory structural efficiency. The engineers designed a beam meeting utilizing versatile T-slot extrusions skinned in anodized aluminum, making a construction that eradicated deflection between mounting factors.
This composite method delivered a number of advantages. It offered the structural rigidity required for the appliance, provided the aesthetic look of premium industrial tools and maintained the customizability that made ServoBelt enticing within the first place.
As well as, the in depth design and testing work proved that the gantry system may meet the identical structural requirements as heavy-duty metal tools whereas sustaining value and lead time benefits.
Customized enhancements guarantee security and reliability
Along with the core gantry and beam, PMD designed and built-in a number of {custom} options to make sure the pick-and-place system operated safely and reliably. The controls included Allen Bradley drives and motors with Neugart gearboxes.
To deal with the payload, PMD chosen Schunk grippers with a security lock characteristic that forestalls them from opening if air stress is misplaced. Engineers additionally designed a small Y-axis shift into the gripper design to accommodate minor positional misalignments of the machines.
For security, PMD performed a danger evaluation. After figuring out the necessity for redundant Z-axis brakes, engineers tasked Bell-Everman with integrating these brakes into the gantry’s design. The corporate’s engineers offered a clear design for the mixing of those brakes. The system’s drives additionally featured Protected Torque Off (STO) to fulfill security necessities.
To deal with the difficulty of oily elements and dripping coolant, PMD designed a sequence of drip trays, which served two functions: They saved coolant contained and prevented employees’ fingers from coming into the gantry’s shifting elements. Bell-Everman delivered the gantry with a bolt sample to facilitate the mixing of those custom-designed trays.
The ServoBelt-powered gantry robotic can enhance security and effectivity. Supply: Bell-Everman
Outcomes: Excessive-end automation at a decrease value
The ServoBelt-powered gantry system efficiently automated the camshaft transport course of, integrating seamlessly with the present machining facilities and the client’s manufacturing execution techniques (MES) database.
- Operational success: The gantry system now handles the entire camshaft workflow, from the preliminary uncooked clean to the ultimate floor unit.
- Security and reliability: The gantry contains many security enhancements, together with {custom} drip trays to include coolant and redundant brakes on the Z-axis. The gantry’s sturdy building and low upkeep necessities additionally guarantee long-term reliability.
- Value-effectiveness: By offering high-end linear motor efficiency at a considerably decrease value, ServoBelt expertise has enabled the implementation of superior automation with out the worth tag of over-engineered techniques.
The ServoBelt-powered gantry now delivers the exact, high-speed automation the provider wanted whereas maintaining prices beneath management. It additionally fills a crucial hole out there, offering producers with a high-performing various to outsized techniques for small to midsize payload purposes that beforehand would have required defaulting to massive, heavy-duty tools.
“What made this mission work was our collaborative method with Bell-Everman and their potential to fulfill our distinctive requests — that’s what received us over,” defined Stratton. “Even past simply assembly our instant necessities, collectively we constructed one thing that would adapt and broaden as wants change.”
In regards to the creator
Parker Maccianti is lead mechanical engineer at Bell-Everman and has been with the corporate for 9 years. He has a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from UC Irvine.
This text is posted with permission.
