More good considerations Chris, John, Dave, Gregg, and all! I do see the possibility of tilting the mount base to match the tilt and skew of our part fixture, thereby reducing the number of needed degrees of freedom for the robot. We also considered that we have X, Y, and rotary A movement of the machine to assist in positioning as well, although I can see that complicating things as it would multiply the hand-offs between controllers. We should be able to mount the magazine carousel wherever, but desire easy access.
The weight of our parts are quite light - maximum less than one ounce. We have a fair amount of room within the enclosure of the machine, and should be able to fit this stuff fairly close to where the machine fixture parks. If it were light and rugged enough, it could ride on the table. To Dave's suggestions about utilizing pneumatics - I'm sure that could be done; stops controlling the travels. Would it really be easier, or is the way to make it simple just to have a 6 axis robot to handle any need? I am going to see what cad modeling can tell us about keeping it simple. If that leads us to a low enough cost it could rationalize getting it done sooner. I'll also consider the idea of bringing in sales/consultation, as it could be considerably less time, trouble and cost compared to hard-knocking it. Thanks again! Andy Evans Evans Precision Tooling Incorporated ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users