Pick and place installation completed

A Japanese company was supplied with a completely pre-assembled, individual parts handling solution by SMAC.

SMAC has developed a solution for what is believed to be the fastest and most precise three-axis pick and place system in the world today.

The solution was developed for a multi-national Japanese manufacturer of luxury goods who were required to both significantly increase product output and improve the flexibility of the manufacturing process.

The speed, position and force are fully and independently programmable - all at the same time.

The customer required the picking and placing of a number of different-sized, high-value micro components.

The weight of these variable sized components are only a few grams and are extremely delicate, therefore difficult to handle.

The X axis of the system has a stroke of 50mm.

The Z axis 30mm and the Theta (rotary) axis of 360 degrees.

The system is required to use the Z axis actuator to pick up the micro component with vacuum using SMAC's patented Softland function before releasing vacuum and lifting off to ensure no damage to the component occurs during pick up.

Then it is required to rotate the component 180 degrees to ensure the component is in the correct position for placing.

The X axis then moves 100mm into position and the Z axis then places the component in position - again using the Softland function.

Both the start and target positions are reported to guarantee the correct placement of the part.

The system then returns to the start position and repeats.

The complete cycle time is under 300ms.

The customer's current solution was running at a cycle time of 900ms.

By integrating force and position sensors into a single direct drive device a major step change in terms of speed and performance has been achieved and new standards in high-speed pick and place factory automation have been set by SMAC.

Whilst the need for speed was paramount the requirement for precision, accuracy and repeatability was even more demanding.

The shaft run out on the z axis actuator was required to be under 10 microns.

The overshoot on this axis also less than 10 microns and the settlement (to pick the component) again less than 10 microns.

The same demanding specification was also required on the return cycle.

On the Y axis actuator (50mm stroke) overshoot was allowed and an accuracy of +/- 10 micronson the settlement of the actuator.

The rotary or Theta axis integrated into the z axis actuator required accuracy +/- two counts on an encoder with a resolution of micron.

This was necessary for settlement when flipping the component 180 degrees.

No external electrical switches or sensors were allowed and a duty cycle of 24 hours a day, seven days a week was required.

On top of this the heat and temperature of the system was not allowed to increase more than 20C from the ambient at any given time.

This solution was custom designed by SMAC's design engineering team in Carlsbad, California - USA.

The customer was supplied with a completely pre-assembled, individual parts handling solution.

It was designed to be quickly retro fitted into the existing production system within the customer's factory.

One of the key features of the SMAC Moving Coil Actuator solution is that by design it has inherent positioning and feedback capability - a closed loop system that ensures no external sensors or switches are required.

This dramatically reduces the amount of external wiring required and facilitates both quick installation and 100% diagnostic feedback and data.

The solution was rigorously tested in advance of delivery and ready to install as a turnkey unit.

The pick and place system integrated two Multipole Moving Coil Actuators (MCA) one of which was a two-axis rotary unit.

The Y axis unit has a stroke of 50mm and the Z unit has a stroke of 30mm and an inbuilt rotary axis of 180 degrees.

Due to the exceptionally high speeds and high duty cycle air cooling was used to keep the temperature of the actuators constant.

The electronic actuators achieve an exceptionally high degree of speed, accuracy and repeatability by the use of specially designed internal components and SMAC's high-performance electronics.

'C' sleeve linear guides deliver exceptionally high life expectancy and a high-resolution encoder is integrated into an optimised size footprint.

The SMAC system is complemented by four high-speed Galil electronic controllers which were incorporated into the solution.

The whole system which is proprietary SMAC technology was taken from concept to delivery of a working system in under six months.

The new system enables perfect quality and allows production times to be tripled.

It also enabled the customer to increase manufacturing throughput and flexibility by rapidly switching to new parts for different products quickly.

Previously, manual machine change over of parts was required.

The SMAC solution reduced existing cycle times from 900ms to 300ms whilst being operated 24/7from 900 ms to 300 ms whilst being operated 24/7.

It is ideally suited for the handling of any micro components where fracturing and damage occurs during the production process when using conventional solutions such as pneumatic devices, ball screw and servo systems.

It is particularly suited to SMT and chip placing applications.

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