References // Gantry robot for loading an electroplating plant
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| Gantry robot for loading an electroplating plant |
It is taken as a matter of course that an automobile should last for several hundred thousand kilometres and use as little fuel as possible. Low fuel consumption means low weight, and few repairs mean little wear. This is an apparent contradiction, as stable and solid constructions are also heavy. For this reason, aluminium is being increasingly used in the automobile industry. The wear and sliding properties of aluminium are not exactly outstanding, and are compensated for by appropriate surface treatments. Engine pistons are, for example, hard anodised in the area of the piston rings. This is done by selective plating in a closed electroplating plant. Four or more pistons are needed for every engine, this means there are enormous numbers of items which cannot be dealt with manually.
That is a classical case for using a gantry robot. Because the design of a complex electroplating plant cannot be adapted to an "off the peg" standard robot, the robot must be adapted to the plant. This is how the loading robot in the photographs was developed. Many different versions of it are now proving their worth, as all the pistons of renowned automobile manufacturers are now passing through their "hands".
The basis of these plants, which can be up to 10 metres long, is the section building block system from HENKEL + ROTH with its various toothed belt axes and drive systems. No matter whether the application requires single grippers with high-speed axes, or whether multiple gripper systems allow parallel processing, the gantry robot systems, combined with the necessary peripheral devices, such as those for feeding and aligning parts, form complex manufacturing cells.
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