#1 Robotic End-of-Arm Tooling (EOAT) Bin-Picking Solution
#1 Robotic End-of-Arm Tooling (EOAT) Bin-Picking Solution
Mount Everest rises approximately 44mm yearly due to tectonic plate activity. YOU can ELEVATE your vision-guided bin-picking applications by selecting Magswitch for your end-of-arm tool design. Magswitch magnetic grippers are the worldwide #1 choice for bin-picking robot end effectors. Whether your parts are structured in a high-precision rack or randomly dumped in a chaotic bin, the benefits of choosing Magswitch are clear.
Magswitch offers innovative magnetic grippers for robotic bin-picking applications, positioning itself as the leading solution for End-of-Arm Tools (EOAT). These grippers provide exceptional flexibility, robustness, and efficiency in handling structured and randomly arranged parts. Key advantages include:
- single-sided work holding,
- rapid actuation times,
- and Variable Flux Output (VFO) technology.
Magswitch tools are failsafe, making them ideal for collaborative robot applications. Their compact design allows for improved cycle times and increased productivity. The grippers feature smart technology with real-time feedback, enabling double-blank detection and pole contact identification without external sensors. Magswitch EOATs simplify system design and reduce implementation costs by eliminating complex kinematics.
These features collectively make Magswitch grippers versatile and effective for enhancing vision-guided robotic bin-picking operations across various industries.
FLEXIBILITY
An octopus is considered one of the most flexible creatures in our world, able to get into practically any hole, although it may seem impossible. Magswitch’s robotic automation end-of-arm tooling (EOAT) grippers offer exceptional flexibility for vision-guided picking bin applications. These grippers can handle random components quickly and efficiently.
Magswitch, an end-of-arm tooling company, tools provides the flexibility of custom pole shoes, allowing for improved holding force and secure gripping of components with irregular shapes. The magnet's north and south poles can effectively be custom-machined to match almost any part contour. Magswitch magnetic grippers have superior holding force than competitors in a similar footprint. The powerful rare earth magnetic fields generated by Magswitch EOATs can overcome small misalignments between the end-of-arm tooling gripper and the target, ensuring reliable performance.
Unlike any pneumatic suction cups or a pivoting power clamp, Magswitch allows you to pick multiple parts should your process be a blind bin pick, part search, and drop to a 2D vision table. One tool allows the blind pick of many parts, drop them on a pass table, and then a guided pick to select the one piece needed to complete the process.
ROBUST AND RELIABLE
Trust your instincts, which are one of the most reliable things on earth. Magswitch, an end-of-arm tooling manufacturer, has magnetic robot grippers that are designed to be durable and reliable, making them suitable for bin-picking operations in demanding environments.
They withstand impacts, vibrations, and other challenging conditions commonly encountered in bin-picking applications. Magswitch grippers can be equipped with armor pole shoe kits, proven to exhibit impressive robustness and reliability in end-of-arm tooling for robot tasks. The combination of Magswitch’s pole shoe technology and the protective armor ensures consistent performance even in challenging environments.
The pole shoes allow secure gripping on flat or curved surfaces, while the armor plating minimizes wear and tear caused by impacts during handling. This durability translates to reliable operation, reduced downtime, and increased productivity for bin-picking applications.
SINGLE-SIDED WORK HOLDING
Like most fish, flounders are born with eyes on both sides of their head. However, as they grow, one eye migrates to the other side of the body! This bizarre transformation allows adult flounders to lie flat on the ocean floor with both eyes on the top of their body, giving them excellent camouflage and a wide field of vision to spot predators and prey.
Like the advantage of the flounder, single-sided work holding represents a significant advancement in vision-guided robotic bin-picking technology. Magswitch end-of-arm tools allow industrial robots to swiftly access and pick parts with only a single side of contact. This results in improved cycle times and increased efficiency compared to the two-sided “hugging” of traditional power clamps. The key to this enhanced performance lies in the compact design of single-sided grippers.
Magswitch magnetic grippers are engineered to fit into tighter spaces, offering greater flexibility in system layout and enabling robots to operate in more confined environments. Their compact design optimizes space utilization and expands the range of applications where robotic bin picking can be effectively implemented. It is much more pleasing to the eye than a flounder.
Enhance Robotic Bin-Picking Applications
Hummingbirds beat their wings up to 80 times per second while traveling at high speeds reaching 40 MPH. Magswitch’s end effectors for robots, with rapid on/off actuation times as quick as 250 milliseconds, significantly enhance robotic system applications by:
Reduced Cycle Time
The swift actuation time of the Magswitch magnetic gripper allows the robot arm to pick and place parts faster, leading to shorter cycle times. Shorter cycle times enable higher productivity, and higher productivity yields an opportunity for changeover, which yields higher profitability.
Improved Efficiency
With a 100% duty cycle and quick response times, Magswitch magnetic grippers enable both rapid adjustments and long-term part holding if the process flow is ever interrupted, thus optimizing the overall process.
Enhanced Throughput
Faster actuation means more parts can be processed within a given timeframe, increasing productivity. Magswitch tooling maximizes Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE), a measure of how well a manufacturing process is utilized compared to its full potential.
Real-Time Feedback
Magswitch’s E Tools integrates smart technology with real-time feedback, allowing for double-blank detection and pole contact identification without external sensors. This revolutionary internal feedback allows bin-picking processes to know IF they have the correct part in the gripper and that the correct number of parts are being held. Intelligent Magswitch tooling eliminates the worry of incorrect stock delivery or misloaded parts in a bin from the supplier.
SAFE
A gold bar stored in Fort Knox weighs around 27.5 pounds, and your robotic bin-picking application is equally safe with Magswitch. Magswitch tools have no external moving parts and are 100% failsafe, meaning they will not change state (ON/OFF) when the actuation method is removed. In the event of a cut airline, after a part is picked with a pneumatic Magswitch, the Magswitch will stay ON and not drop the part!
Similarly, if the electrical signal cable is cut on an E tool, the magnet stays ON, and the part will NOT fall. With no moving external parts, vision-guided bin picking with Magswitch EOATs is ideal for collaborative robot (CoBot) applications. This advantage can often reduce operator times in manual load stations where the bins of parts are exchanged by lowering the required safe distance time calculations from moving objects per ANSI B11:19.
Safe distance equals Ds = K x (Ts + Tc + Tr + Tbm) + Dpf.
VARIABLE FLUX OUTPUT (VFO)
Magswitch E-tools feature groundbreaking patented technology that allows for adjustable magnetism output. This Variable Field Output (VFO) capability enables the robot’s End-of-Arm Tooling (EOAT) to perform single-part picks from a pile of components. Without VFO, extracting a small piece from a bin containing thousands of parts can be challenging, potentially disrupting the overall process throughput.
VFO proves especially useful when vision guidance consistently directs the robot to the center of the bin, inadvertently creating a hole that hampers future vision recognition and picking options. By leveraging VFO, the magnetic gripper can oversaturate a single part, thereby retrieving an entire pile of components. Once the robot exits the bin, the Magswitch VFO can be reduced, causing any extra parts to drop off and redistribute evenly within the bin. This unique approach eliminates the need for shaker tables or the time-consuming process colloquially known as “stirring the pot.”
Whether the part requires the agile Magswitch E30 or the powerful E50 tool, the ability to vary the magnetic field by any percentage with Magswitch VFO offers HUGE advantages to the few steps commonly available in other technologies like electro-permanent magnets (EPM) or electromagnetism.
REDUCED DESIGN TIME - No Kinematics
During the simulation phase of designing a robotic bin picking system, a Magswitch single-sided Magnetic End of Arm Tooling (EOAT) offers several benefits:
- Straightforward to model and simulate.
- Reducing complexity during system design by eliminating advanced end effector kinematics.
- Without complex kinematic mechanisms like multiple clamping devices and moving pins, simulation times are shorter, allowing faster iterations.
- Optimization yields greater efficiency during design by allowing the designers to focus on optimizing the gripping process to ensure reliable part handling.
These design time savings result in faster implementation time, simpler installation and commissioning, and lower overall implementation costs.
Smart Technology
Earth is divided into four hemispheres: north, south, east, and west. It comprises seven continents: Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Antarctica, Europe, and Australia. However, only Africa can claim to be located in all four hemispheres. Magswitch E Tools may not have the intelligence to answer trivia questions, but they can tell your bin-picking robot controller network if your robot has more than one part and if that part is the correct part needed for the process.
Using sophisticated sensor arrays within the E-tool, your Magswitch picking tool can learn the “signature” of any part and output the proper part present when a match is made. If a double part is picked, the system will determine that the signatures do not match and will not send the present signal to the part.
CONCLUSION
Magswitch's innovative magnetic grippers offer a new, simple, and easy solution for robotic bin-picking applications, positioning themselves as the leading choice for End of Arm Tools (EOAT). With flexibility, robustness, single-sided work holding, rapid actuation times, and Variable Flux Output (VFO) technology, Magswitch grippers significantly enhance efficiency and productivity in structured and random bin-picking scenarios.
Their failsafe design, compact form factor, and smart technology with real-time feedback make them ideal for various applications, including collaborative robot applications. By simplifying system design, reducing implementation costs, and improving cycle times, Magswitch EOATs provide a versatile and effective solution that elevates vision-guided robotic bin-picking operations to new heights of performance and reliability.
For additional information on the many facets of robotic bin picking, please consider visiting any one of these excellent resources and Magswitch partners:
- Determine Economic Feasibility for Robotic Bin Picking – White Paper
- Crack the robotic bin picking code with Apera AI's 4D Vision, you can build faster and more reliable robotic bin picking cells.
- Unmatched Detection Capability and Ease of Use for Robot Bin Picking - Optimal hardware and algorithms for 3D Vision-Guided Robotics Systems.
