Smart Manufacturing: STEP Robot Showcases Multiple Industry Application Achievements | Replays of the Industrial Fair Exhibition
2018-09-26
In recent years, the widespread adoption of robots has significantly enhanced the level of intelligent manufacturing in traditional factories. At the China International Industry Fair, held from September 19 to 23 at the Shanghai National Exhibition and Convention Center, STEP, in collaboration with Leisun Robotics, showcased automated production line solutions for solar panels, as well as intelligent systems for applications such as door panel bending, faucet polishing and grinding, and tool polishing and grinding. Additionally, they demonstrated the fun and engaging application of robots making cotton candy.
Door Panel Bending Display Unit
This workstation on display has already been put into production and operation in multiple locations. Bending process: four blades on each side; production mode: the robot completes the fabrication of the workpiece in one go, without requiring manual replacement of tooling.
This workstation features one SR50E robot paired with one manual magnetic separation table, one gravity-centering table, and one material-discharge table. The SR50E robot is mounted upright on the floor and performs the bending operation on all four sides of the side door.
Door panel bending unit
Elevator door panel production line
Fully Automatic Photovoltaic Module Production Line Solution
The newly commissioned automated production line for solar panels—from the glass-loading robot to the in-line EVA edge-cutting machine, then to the robotic stringing of battery cells, robotic edge trimming, robotic labeling, the downstream curing line, and finally the three-line single-transfer robotic sorting—enables the entire production process to be carried out in a “dark factory” environment.
Photovoltaic automated production line
Smart System for Tool Polishing and Grinding
Smart System for Tool Polishing and Grinding
The tools being polished on-site are ordinary kitchen knives used in households. The robot performs water-based wire brushing on the knife handles. The supporting equipment includes a 6-axis robot, a dual-station polishing machine, a water circulation system, specialized tooling fixtures, and an intelligent control system. After the tools are loaded, the robot grips them and begins polishing along a pre-programmed trajectory. Once polishing is complete, the robot unloads the tools back to their original positions.
Technological Advantages
This system is an automated polishing and wire-drawing system centered around a robot and equipped with a flexible polishing machine. During the polishing and wire-drawing processes, when there are slight variations in parameters such as abrasive consumption and polishing force, the system automatically adjusts these parameters to ensure consistent polishing and wire-drawing results.
The belt sander is equipped with a force-controlled mechanism that can accommodate certain dimensional tolerances of the product, ensuring grinding accuracy and consistency. Additionally, depending on the product’s polishing and finishing process, auxiliary mechanisms (such as automatic waxing units or water grinding systems) can be added, different abrasive consumables can be used, and the number of workstations can be increased or decreased.
Dust generated during grinding and polishing can be isolated and collected by installing additional dust-control systems (such as dust-proof rooms and dust collectors) to prevent harm to human health.
Scope of application
This workstation can be used for grinding the shank portion of cutting tools, and is capable of performing grinding and wire brushing on various types of tool shanks, including sandwich-shank, plastic-shank, metal-injection-molded, and welded shanks.
Smart System for Polishing and Finishing Faucets
Smart System for Polishing and Finishing Faucets
The workstation is an integrated, all-in-one system that includes a robot, a force-controlled multi-functional belt sander, and loading/unloading stations. It operates as follows: Operators manually load parts onto the loading station, then press the “Loading Complete” button. The robot then sequentially picks up the parts, performs grinding and polishing, and returns them to their initial positions. Finally, operators manually unload the finished parts, thereby completing the entire grinding and polishing process.
Scope of application
This workstation can be used for surface treatment of various types of products, including hardware items, zinc alloy products, clinker products, ceramic bathroom fixtures, and a wide range of non-metallic materials.
The robot makes cotton candy.
The robot makes cotton candy.
This is a creative fusion of robotics and traditional crafting techniques. First, the robotic arm picks up a wooden stick and then reaches into the adjacent sugar-mixing area. Thanks to the robotic arm’s nimble movements, its sixth axis can rotate infinitely in one direction, causing the syrup ejected from the sugar-mixing area to quickly solidify into fluffy, cotton-like sugar.
The various automation solutions showcased on-site empower intelligent manufacturing in industries such as home appliances, new energy, sheet metal processing, and grinding & polishing. Meanwhile, STEP Robotics can provide more tailored intelligent manufacturing solutions for different industries. Stay tuned!
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