PFALZOBOT

The pepper & salt robot from the Pfalz.

Current condition of the automation system: 

Cell 105: Pepper & salt should be bottled in the fully automated system, depending on the customer's requirements. The production data is displayed and processed at the human-machine interface. After filling, the robot seals the container with a lid in the next step. After closing, the robot transports the container to a vibratory plate to mix the existing pepper/salt mixture. Finally, the container is placed in the prefabricated package.

Cell 110: In this cell (same system) the assembly of whistles is carried out. For this purpose, the underside is first placed on the workpiece carrier by a robot. Now the carrier moves to the next station and a bullet falls from a isolation into the resonant body of the whistle. In the last step, the top of the whistle is put on top of the undersite also with a robot. Now, the whistle is ready to use. The workpiece carrier moves back to the manual workstation and the finished parts can be removed.

New tasks for 2020:

Weighing cell

During the salt/pepper filling in production cell 105, a weighing cell was installed to send its data to the PLC. The interface of the load cell must be connected to the PLC in order to be able to process the data.

Robots

A robot that operates via Arduino control must be programmed to place a container from the workpiece carrier to the load cell and then back to the workpiece carrier. To do this, the driver board for the servo power supply needs to be adapted.

HMI control

The control panel needs to be updated with the latest generation control system (PLCnext). The existing operator software must be ported and adapted to the new controller. With the new controller it is possible to upload the production data of the automation system into the corresponding cloud. These data will be analyzed statistically with the here available tools and made available at the appropriate place (HMI, Homepage).