 Single-board motion solution for plastics robot: Baldor UK's three-axis servo module, EuroServo, is providing Automated Assemblies with the ideal cost-effective motion controller for its new low-cost plastic parts removal robot, Optimum. The controller replaces a PLC used on earlier entry-level robots, and thanks to its built in Mint language, greatly simplified the development task. In fact, the high level nature of the programming language helped the company to develop the motion software for its new product in something less than 10 weeks total!
For example, a key development goal for Automated Assemblies was to produce a low cost robot which is capable of sophisticated 'teach and replay' functionality - to allow users to program new parts removal tasks in minutes. Built-in Mint functions such as Contouring, coupled with the ability to store movement sequences in an array and replay them, made this easy to accomplish. Moreover, the way that EuroServo's onboard Mint interpreter allowed motion programs to be tested instantly made product optimization fast. Programming the same functions using a PLC would have taken far, far longer, the robot's designers note.
The company also used two of Baldor UK's add-on modules to provide a complete off-the-shelf control solution. A 24-channel digital module handles all the robot's gripper status, end stop, safety interlock and other I/O signals. And the company's low-cost operator panel, with its numeric keypad, 4-line display and programmable keys provides an intrinsically simple to use man-machine interface for the kind of factory environments that Optimum will be installed in. |
