November 2024 Volume 6

AUTOMATION

How The Billet Picker Works and Why It Is Unique The Billet Picker is a special End-Of-Arm Tool (EOAT) integrated with Pickit 3D vision system and billet-specific software for robotic handling. It ticks all the boxes in terms of speed, accuracy, flexibility, and cost efficiency. The billet gripper's uniqueness and advantages build on the concept of having an adaptable tooltip with the magnet mounted on a rotational axis.

The tooltip's ability to freely rotate is particularly beneficial for extracting parts that are partially blocked or positioned near bin walls. Billets can be easily maneuvered away from obstructions, ensuring efficient and reliable picking processes. Today, Pickit 3D offers six different billet pickers for small and large payloads. These pickers can handle billets of various sizes and materials, including carbon & stainless steel, aluminum, titanium, and copper, using magnetic or suction modules. The Pickit 3D Billet Picker can handle billets with lengths starting from 150 mm, diameters ranging from 30 to 170 mm, and weights of up to 60kg.

Pickit 3D Easy to Use Software Platform

The Pickit 3D Billet Picker has an adaptable tooltip with the magnet mounted on a rotational axis

The first advantage of this adaptable tooltip is that it maximizes the likelihood to find a pickable part compared to a classical straight or slanted tool, because the tooltip (in this case the magnetic finger(s)) can adopt any position within a continuous range between -45 to +45 degrees, instead of only one (in case of a straight tool) or two (in case of a slanted/eccentric tool) discrete positions. By allowing the robot flange to remain within the bin walls during picking, this innova tive tool significantly reduces the required workspace and footprint for the robot cell. As its design simplifies the picking motions, there is no need for third-party motion plan ning software, which in its turn increases the overall throughput of the cell.

Pickit 3D offers a highly intuitive user interface

The Billet Gripper is modeled in Pickit 3D software, known for its ease-of-use thanks to a highly intuitive user interface. The software knows the flexibility of the gripper and will use this to avoid collisions with objects in the bin and the bin itself, find the most convenient billet to pick first and take the most beneficial approach angle of the robot. ‘Teaching’ a billet to the software is fast and easy. The billet dimensions can be specified in the easy-to-use interface or be set from the robot or PLC program. This eliminates the need to teach each billet size into the system. Depending on the billet size, the Pickit 3D software will automatically select the best pick points. Because the interface is so intuitive, it does not require people to be 3D robot vision experts to rapidly implement new products and make changes to the programs.

FIA MAGAZINE | NOVEMBER 2024 21