Diabetes Sensor Needle Auto Load
Vendor-Epson-Allen Bradley-B&R Industrial Automation-Millibar
The needle loading machine was made to automatically load needles into a mold press to meet a desired cycle time. An operator loads two magazines with trays after removing their lids. The trays are then picked SCARA robots with a backlit end effector. An Epson vision camera then looks at five needles at a time to check for proper orientation and location. After all the pickable needles in the field of view have been picked, the tray will index to the next spot. Once the tray is empty it is offloaded a new tray is picked and presented to the camera. Another set of SCARA robots picks needles from the trays and loads them into the flip station. Once 8 needles have been placed in a flip station it will flip and the needles are placed onto a pallet on a SuperTrak. The SuperTrak allows for wip to accumulate so that when a tray change happens there is no delay in parts being loaded into the press. The pallet then is sent to the next flip station where the next 8 needles are flipped and placed onto the pallet. Pallets are then sent to another SCARA robot that picks 4 needles at a time and places them into the mold press. Once the needles have been placed a Keyence IV inspection camera verifies the needles have been placed in the mold press properly. The machine is capable of loading both an 8 cavity mold and a 16 cavity mold.
