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Robots put production in motion

April 1, 2005
One of Epson's customers wanted to increase production from two to six parts/min, reduce changeover times, and handle a growing product mix by incorporating robots. It also desired one, programmable human-machine interface (HMI) that worked on all the equ

TT8550 Scara robots from Epson increase production from two to six parts/min, reduce changeover times, and handle a growing product mix for one of the company's customers.

One of Epson's customers wanted to increase production from two to six parts/min, reduce changeover times, and handle a growing product mix by incorporating robots. It also desired one, programmable human-machine interface (HMI) that worked on all the equipment involved. Two Epson TT8550 Scara robots fit the bill.

The two robots perform complex motion tasks such as palletizing, screw driving, and precision assembly. The customer also uses pneumatic devices for simple pickand-place operations. Its system increases production rates 300% and minimizes line costs.

Epson controllers handle all production-line components, including the robots, conveyors, lift and locate stations, feeder bowls, escapements, and the pneumatic pick-and-place stations. In addition, this controller lets developers use one common architecture for all motion, I/O, multitasking, and safety circuitry in the line, thus optimizing integration costs. With the controller, the customer programs from one environment, SPEL for Windows, to reduce complexity and implementation time for the line. SPEL's graphical user interface and project-management functions aide development through concurrent programs.

The customer creates a GUI using Visual Basic (VB) through the VB Guide option and Active X controls. Active X integrates SPEL programming and maintenance screens as well as discrete commands into the Visual Basic HMI.

Epson America Inc.
Carson, Calif.
robots.epson.com