A Challenge Simmatic Solution

An existing vacuum pick and place line at a biscuit manufacturer used a rotary vane pump to supply vacuum to five delta robots. This was inefficient and unsuccessful at handling the wide variety of biscuits. We were invited to find an answer and accepted as “A Challenge Simmatic Solution.”

The existing pick and place system was continually blocking with crumbs and oil from the biscuits causing numerous breakdowns and constant maintenance.
Simmatic used the new Premium Speeder from VMECA. This takes a single compressed air line to generate vacuum at the source of each cup and incorporate a straight through design to prevent blockages and was the right solution for this application.

This straight through design allows any crumbs and oil to be ejected out of the exhaust port, these are collected in a large bowl filter, therefore reducing the need for cleaning and regular maintenance on each gripper. We trialled VMECA’s Premium Speeder with sample biscuits provided from our customer. The biscuits had different textures and inclusions. Watch our video to see the results of our first trial …

Although Simmatic’s initial trials were successful, our customer had limited resources to redesign the vacuum heads to integrate VMECA’s Premium Speeders. Simmatic’s solution: We began remodelling the gripper head, a new 3D printed head was designed at Simmatic maintaining both physical and cup face dimensions so as, not to alter robot programme settings.

The new 3D printed Gripper Head designed by Tom Greenow-Langford here at Simmatic Automation…

Vacuum Handling Application for Biscuits

 

Simmatic returned to the customer and converted a single Delta Robot head to use the VMECA Premium Speeder. After initial issues with the P Lip turning inside out with different surface textures, the XP35-W5(FDA) vacuum cup proved most successful at full speed with 100% pick rate…

Simmatic offer a broad experience within the packaging industry. In fact, our packaging vacuum handling solutions are some of the best in the world! Our products regularly feature in Machinery Update magazine and online – the official publication of the PPMA.
VMECA’s Premium Speeder  features in Simmatic Automation’s advert in the current issue of ‘Machinery Update’
Ask Simmatic Automation Specialists Ltd about VMECA’s Premium Speeders and vacuum cups. We invite companies to Challenge Us with their industrial vacuum handling applications. We will accept and find you “A Challenge Simmatic Solution.”