Automated Assembly System for motor shaft bearings.

This system automatically assembles 2 different configurations of motor bearings at a rate of 20 units/minute.

Features include:

An intelligent operator interface and a Lightstack™ are used to communicate system status.  For example, the machine warns the operator that he's about to run out of parts with messages such as "stator bin empty" (accompanied by a flashing yellow warning light on the Lightstack).  Using the same example, if the operator fails to refill the feed bin and the parts queue in the feed section between the parts bin and the dial plate goes to zero, the interface displays the message "stator feed empty", the red Lightstack light flashes and the system shuts down.

Simplified dial loading/unloading (a dial strips the parts from the stator feed track, and an unload track strips assemblies from the dial plate.

Machine handles 2 different motor bearing configurations at a rate of 20 assemblies per minute.  All parts are automatically fed.

Sensors monitoring all functions and all stations are tied into a PLC.  The ladder logic diagram runs approximately 50 pages!

Note the intelligent operator interface on the small control panel.

 

The picture to the right (with interlocked guarding removed for photograph) shows the dial plate stripping a stator from a feed track at the 9 o'clock position, a bushing insertion station at the 12 o'clock dial position, the sintered carbon bearing insertion station at the 3 o'clock position, and the track stripping the completed bearing assembly from the dial at the 6 o'clock position.

 

                                                    This is a view into the PLC control box. 

 

     And the picture to the left is a view of the feed system into the back of the machine.

 

 

 

 

 

It is of interest to note that a few months after this machine was put into production, the customer ordered a loading mechanism that would transfer these parts directly to a precision lathe.

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