Is My Activity Actually Appropriate?

Screwdriving is the second-most widespread meeting activity. However additionally it is a tiresome job with many issues when carried out manually. Automated screwdriving gives a extremely efficient resolution… however provided that your activity is appropriate.

Meeting is a core exercise for a lot of producers and screwdriving is an especially widespread operation. In keeping with analysis, the one meeting activity that’s extra prevalent than screwdriving is peg-in-hole.

There are many nice causes to automate your screwdriving activity, together with improved consistency, diminished harm to employees, and excessive accuracy.

The issue is that not all screwdriving duties are appropriate for automation.

If you choose the fallacious activity — or the fallacious kind of automated screwdriving machine —you would find yourself with an automated screwdriving system that does not fit your wants.

What kind of automated screwdriving system do you want?

Folks generally get the fallacious thought on the subject of automated screwdriving. They assume that there are solely two choices: handbook screwdriving or full-scale automation.

In actuality, there are just a few choices for automated, or semi-automated, screwdriving. Any of those is likely to be appropriate on your wants. Which resolution is finest depends upon your state of affairs.

Three widespread choices are:

• Full automated screwdriving machine — These are a sort of typical automation. In order that they are typically large, cumbersome, and costly. They embody fastened spindles and fixtures that carry out precisely the identical screwing operation each time. They are perfect for high-volume manufacturing with easy screwdriving duties that by no means change.
• Auto-screw feeder with handheld nutrunner — That is one step up from handbook screwdriving with an electrical screwdriver. The operator holds the nutrunner of their hand, which offers excessive torque to the screw. The automated side comes from the screw feeder, which mechanically feeds the nutrunner with screws.
• Robotic screwdriving — Collaborative robotic screwdriving gives the most effective of each worlds. It’s virtually as versatile as handbook screwdriving for some duties however has the excessive consistency of typical automation.

Earlier than you possibly can assess your explicit screwdriving activity for suitability, you have to to resolve which of those 3 varieties of automation you want.

5 elements that make a screwdriving activity difficult for automation

What makes a screwdriving activity simple or tough for automation?

If you find yourself manually screwdriving, you may not discover that the duty is definitely fairly complicated. Deceptively complicated.

Robotics researchers broke the duty of screwdriving down into its part elements to seek out which have been essentially the most difficult.

Listed here are 5 elements that make a activity difficult for automated screwdriving:

1. Unclear understanding of your screwdriving activity

The primary problem comes earlier than you even begin deploying your automated resolution. There are numerous automated screwdriving options in the marketplace. All of them share comparable properties, however some will probably be extra appropriate on your wants than others.

If you do not have a transparent understanding of your screwdriving activity, this will make it very arduous to discover a good resolution on your wants.

2. Screw meting out

One problem with automation is that all the things must be offered in a managed, constant method. For instance, a screwdriving robotic requires that the screws are offered in precisely the identical location and orientation each time.

A typical resolution for that is to make use of a screw feeder. This ensures that the robotic will all the time obtain a screw in the fitting method. The Robotiq Screwdriving Resolution contains the Robotiq SF-300 Screw Feeder for this objective.

If every of your assemblies requires dozens of various screw varieties, shapes, and sizes, it turns into lots tougher to dispense the screws correctly.

3. Uncommon, nonferrous screws

A associated downside is transporting the screw from the feeder to the work house. You don’t need the screw to fall from the robotic’s finish effector when it is in movement. This might result in an incorrectly assembled product.

With ferrous screws, the robotic can preserve maintain of the screw utilizing a magnetic tip. Nonetheless, this does not work for all screw varieties.

In case your activity makes use of an uncommon, nonferrous kind of screw, you may wrestle to automate it simply.

4. Unusual or complicated screw alignment

Presumably an important and difficult side of automated screwdriving is alignment. The screw have to be completely aligned with the bolt or gap. Whether it is incorrectly aligned, faults like cross-threading can happen, ruining the workpiece.

Your chosen automated screwdriving system ought to have the ability to precisely place and align the screw, in addition to account for errors.

In case your screws are very tough to align for some motive, it might be arduous to automate the duty with out including further parts or fixtures.

5. Extreme torque required

There are three fundamental levels to any screwdriving movement: Alignment, rundown, and tightening.

Within the remaining tightening step, the automated system applies torque to the screw, fixing it firmly in place. Your system ought to have the ability to assist the torque required. For instance, the Robotiq Screwdriving Resolution can apply torques as much as 4 Nm.

In case your screws require very excessive torques, they’ll want specialist nutrunners to account for this.

assess your screwdriving activity for suitability with a robotic

There are some clear indicators {that a} screwdriving activity is appropriate for automation.

Some good guidelines of thumb while you assess a activity for robotic automation are…

• The half might be fixtured
• The duty is easy
• Just one human is changed
• Makes use of a single kind of screw
• You will have operator buy-in
• Further flooring house is accessible
• Has a excessive impression

You’ll be able to be taught extra about these in our articles Appraise Potential Duties for Robotic Screwdriving, and 10 Properties to Search for in a Robotic Screwdriving System.

To seek out out in regards to the Robotiq Screwdriving Resolution go to our product web page.

Which of your screwdriving duties do you assume could possibly be appropriate for automation? Inform us within the feedback beneath or be part of the dialogue on LinkedIn, Twitter, Fb, or the DoF skilled robotics group.