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Trifle sponge depositor

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eski1

Mechanical
Jun 15, 2004
90
hi I have been tasked with looking at a way to place sponge circles onto a conveyor belt , info below .

Sponge 60mm dia x 9mm thick ,harder than cake sponge but not as hard as a biscuit also tends to stick together a little bit if stacked . Mechanism needs to be speed regulated to conveyor via control system so only works when product called for etc.
Delivery rate 80 per minute per conveyor, sponge needs to land on conveyor in single file spaced at 90mm centers .Sponge arrives in cardboard boxes in stacks 500mm high , it is the hope of the customer that 1 person can feed 4 conveyors .

Really just looking for guidance to the best way to do this , thought of having them in long stacks say 1.5m high above a rotary disc type depositor but cant think of an easy way to keep the weight of the stack from causing sticking issues .Any help greatly received .
Cheers Tim
 
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80 per minute, single file, 90mm spacing...doubt a human can do that. For much more than a few minutes, anyway.

Perhaps you have the option to do this using robotics. You should investigate of the "delta" or "spider" robots from Adept Technology, ABB, Fanuc. SCARA-type robots may also be an option. You would need to employ "conveyor tracking" to synchronize the place point on the moving conveyor belt.

Then you'd have to be clever on how to present the sponges to the robot.

In case you don't recognize it, you've got quite a task in front of you.

TygerDawg
Blue Technik LLC
Virtuoso Robotics Engineering
 
Are you the Automation Engineer, or are you looking for one? This is a complex task that will involve several disciplines, including the robotics as well as some level of vision integration, conveyor indexing etc. etc. If you do not have a lot of experience in multi-discipline automation integration, I highly suggest subbing this out to someone who does. If you have a favorite control platform, that would help to narrow the field of choices in your area.

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I do this for a living, and it's going to be rather futile to try and get you a comprehensive response on this forum.

If you want some help, email me and we can help you out with some suggestions.

There are a lot of options and a lot of questions.

Charlie
 
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