Designing a Vacuum Pick & Place tool 5

[see3p0]

I need to attempt to design a vacuum pick and place tool.

I will need to pick and place an aluminium ring inner diameter about 160mm, outer diamerer about 190mm and height 15mm.

It would be possible to build in slots on the ring if this was to assist the tool in attaching to the ring when a vacuum is applied.

There seeems to be plenty of vacuum technology used for transporting everything from pallets to car batteries in a production environment, but I cant seem to find any info on where they are used in a laboratory/ cleaner environment and on smaller components.

I havent had much luck finding documentation ; The basics of designing such vacuum pick and place tool or even examples used in industry already, custom companies that make this technology.

Any advice or info on where to look would be much appreciated,

 

[MintJulep]

I'd suggest a three-fingered gripper on the ID or OD.

Vacuum just always seems to be a pain.

 

[unclesyd]

i agree with MintJulip that a mechanical gripper would work better. You can put a mechanical gripper on the end that is operated by a vacuum. I don't know if your component for this type system.

Here is a vacuum system very similar to the one we used in our clean room,(metrology]to minimize the ingress of bad air or oil from a small leak..

i would contact Exair with your requirements.

http://www.eIair.com/en-US/Primary ...ource=google&gclid=CLD7nIeT3aYCFUJm7Aoduji61g

 

[asimpson]

If you have a nice flat non porus surface a ring of vacuum cups should do the job. Quick, easy to design and light. Depending on the application. The trick is choosing the right suction cups for the job.

Any of the pneumatic companies like Festo, SMC, Bimba Should have a good range of suction cups and vacuum generators.
there are also specialists in the field like:

http://www.piab.com/

 

[Pud]

Google "End of Arm Tooling" - thousands of choices. Often you can buy a kit of parts to assemble yourself.

H

http://www.tynevalleyplastics.co.uk

 

[tygerdawg]

What asimpson said, almost exactly. What you are doing is not hard, nor a pain to maintain in a ClassX cleanroom environment. Fab a ring of small suction cups to match the 15mm annulus presented to the tool. Piab, others, could certainly be used as engineering resources to help size & select components: that's what Applications Departments and Sales Engineers are supposed do.

TygerDawg
Blue Technik LLC
Virtuoso Robotics Engineering

http://www.bluetechnik.com

 

[IRstuff]

There are plenty of vacuum equipment designed for semiconductor and integrated circuit manufacturing that might be suitable. Pick and place equipment for bare die are required to operate in probably Class 1000, and maybe Class 100 environments.

TTFN

FAQ731-376
Chinese prisoner wins Nobel Peace Prize

 

[see3p0]

Thank you so much for all the helpful information.

Because space is very limited for picking and placing this metal ring, I would like to use something alond the lines of the principle of a Vacuum plate that is sometimes used in cnc machining operations, I would really like to avoid suction cups, and moving rubber parts.

I have also found a very small amount of info on a Nitinol Clamp mentioned on page 59 (second last paragraph)

http://books.google.nl/books?id=6UF...wBzgK#v=onepage&q=vacuum plate design&f=false

Does anyone have any expereince with these memory alloy clamps? Im surprised there is very little information about them online.