Automated Assembly for Waterproof Electrical Connectors, Courtesy of Noble Plastics

Описание: Automated Electrical Connector Assembly

FANUC Authorized System Integrator, Noble Plastics designed and built this custom automation system to assemble over-molded, waterproof electrical connectors for water meters.

The existing tending system required at least 80 seconds per cycle. This time was used to pick, inspect, orient, and then place the substrate into a load bar that was placed into the mold. Force sensing and iRVision was leveraged to decrease this process significantly. This was accomplished by combining steps and movements (not using separate stations for each step), optimizing orientation and inspection methodology, and using force sensing for insertion into the mold. Force sensing allows the robot to calibrate positions automatically at startup with a new mold (no manual operator touch ups), then to place the connectors into the mold with a .002" clearance on critical features.

Previously the customer had experienced up to 50% insertion failure on some geometries. This caused low production rates, damaged product, and poorly molded product quality due to inconsistent molding cycle times. The automatic calibration, automatic recovery methods, and teach pendant based HMI allow for easy training of operators on the system.

This system allowed for a 30 sec cycle time reduction (80s to 50s per 4 parts), a significant cell size reduction (about 40%), improved efficiency through automatic recovery methods, added automatic incoming and outgoing inspection, decreased insertion failure rate (connector into mold 50% to 5% in worst case), and reduced the skill level required for operation through automatic calibration and user interface.

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