How to automate the process of handling car mirrors and to put them on a rack

[enomoti]

My client- Spain based 1-Tier Automobile supplier- is looking for a new loading process to be performed automatically without manual intervention, specifically loading of raw parts before painting. Can anybody give me a suggestion/ idea how to do that?
Would seriously need some help with that..

 

[BrianPetersen]

Ummm Robot ... Design an end-effector that will pick up the parts.

Vague question, vague answer. What are you unloading from, what are you loading onto. What exactly is the piece - just the outer housing, presumably. How well is the orientation of the parts defined when they are coming in.

 

[dgallup]

When you say mirror, are you talking about the silvered glass, the housing or both? Solutions will be different.

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The Help for this program was created in Windows Help format, which depends on a feature that isn't included in this version of Windows.

 

[VEBill]

It's "before painting", so probably the housing.

 

[enomoti]

You're right, VE1BLL.
It's the outer housing part of the mirror. Check out the spec:

Loading of raw parts for painting is fully manual and today performed as follows:
Operators have to take raw parts from the box and fix it on a rack that is used to move the parts through the paint shop.
Dimensions of the racks are the same for all parts, but fixing points and quantity of parts per rack are individual for each part.
Parts must be loaded on both sides of the rack, however the conveyor is not equipped in turn station (see attached documents).
In the worst case there are 54 parts/rack. Conveyor is moving with a fixed speed of 1,4 m/min, including gap between racks, it give a loading time per rack of 60 sec. However average quantity of loaded racks per hour is around 45 due to color changes and some downtimes. Therefore, a potential option of off-line loading can give additional time if buffer of loaded racks is considered. Parts must be loaded very precisely in order to guarantee the same position (distance, angle etc.) for painting robots. And those parts must be tightly held on the racks to avoid falling down during the painting process.

 

[MacGyverS2000]

If they're coming out of boxes, there will always be some human intervention. Best you can hope for in that case is they dump a box on a conveyer belt and a machine (possibly with a vision system) straightens them out and loads them.

This is a custom system, obviously, and requires a machinery manufacturer to make a direct visit to the site and determine what you need designed for you.

Dan - Owner

http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com

 

[BrianPetersen]

Are the parts oriented in the box (nested in a fixture) or are they just loosely piled in there?

Having parts like this, which are intended to eventually have a quality painted finish, loosely banging against each other in a box, is not a good idea.

What is the upstream process which is putting the parts into that box?

If you want to automate this, the parts should really be stored in a nest in that box, so that they are all oriented (and prevented from rattling around against each other). If they are stored in a nest, you can have a robot pick parts out pretty easily. And the parts could have pretty easily been put into that nest in the upstream process if that process was also automated.

Don't forget that anything you want to automate, has to be done in accordance with applicable safety standards such as ISO 10218 if there is a robot involved.

You have to look at the complete picture. Or, more specifically, as suggested above, a custom automation integrator needs to have a look at the complete picture.

 

[Cisc]

There is something that comes to my mind, due to my experience: Vision Guided Robotics

 

[enomoti]

Upstream, the parts are put into different types boxes manually.
Of course they are protected against scratching, but I agree with BrianPetersen that this part has to be included in the question..