Gripper promises soft and delicate force control
A
SMAC Europe product story
Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team
Feb 22, 2007
Gripper unit provides machine builders and system integrators with a solution that helps minimise design time, enables quick and flexible installation options and also reduces purchasing costs.
SMAC has developed a compact and cost-effective high-precision single-axis gripper unit.
The small overall footprint and light weight makes this unit ideal for pick and place robotic applications, and measuring and testing operations where high speed and accuracy are required.
The new GLP series gripper provides machine builders and system integrators with a solution that helps minimise design time, enables quick and flexible installation options and also reduces purchasing costs.
With a high gripping force of 5N and free and independent control of speed, gripping force and finger position the unit is highly suited to handling delicate components.
The unit achieves this impressive performance through the use of specially designed internal components and SMAC's high performance electronics.
C sleeve linear guides are incorporated to deliver exceptionally high life expectancy and a high resolution encoder is integrated into an optimised size footprint.
The part number of the gripper unit is GLP5-20-10.
The unit has a stroke length of 5mm per jaw and a resolution of 5, 1 or 0.5um.
Due to this level of accuracy the unit is especially useful for measuring a workpiece while being picked and transported, making it ideal for inline QC operations "on the fly".
The unit also enables 100% data feedback of all operations as standard.
The gripper unit - which can operate at up to speeds of 5Hz and is powered by SMAC's patented and highly successful MCA moving coil magnet, which transmits motion through a directly coupled lever mechanism.
This enables the unit to deliver its key advantages of very soft and delicate force control and gripping force and ultra-high-precision measurement from the same device.
The key advantages of this design are that external buffers or shock absorbers are not required to cushion its motion.
Also no external switches or sensors are required for positional sensing.
Further to this it minimises the overall dimensions of the unit which enables it to be used in applications where the work space envelope is extremely limited.
These features offer numerous and significant advantages which are not possible with old fashioned pneumatic grippers due to a very high degree of friction and a lack of force control.
Also, the unit is virtually silent in operation when compared with noisy compressed air systems.
Further to this multipositional programming is easily achieved allowing an automatic change of process or component and a quick change of machine setups.
These unique features deliver a high degree of inherent intelligence which again is simply not possible with conventional, old fashioned, energy inefficient, noisy pneumatic solutions currently available.
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