e30ryan
Aluminum
- Joined
- Oct 26, 2016
- Location
- Ontario, Canada
I have been tasked with buying a robot to replace an existing mechanical system for feeding a stamping press. We are a university doing research (mostly in warm/hot sheet forming applications), so continuous production of the same part(s) is not part of our daily life.
This will be the first robot installed in our labs, so we are essentially starting with a clean-slate in terms of brand preferences and compatibility. We will be connecting this to an Allen Bradley PLC via Ethernet/IP (I assume all major robot manufacturers will have this comm available).
What I am looking for help with is which brand would provide the best features for low volume prototyping/research? We will be continuously changing parts, geometries, paths, etc, so I don't want to end up with a cumbersome interface which makes these sorts of changes more difficult. Which brands offer the easiest to use offline simulation software?
I have been looking at Fanuc (mostly due to user base), ABB, Yaskawa, Kuka, etc.
Our robot capacity that I am aiming for would be 6 axis, 40-60 kg rated payload, and a reach of 2.0-2.5 m.
Cheers
This will be the first robot installed in our labs, so we are essentially starting with a clean-slate in terms of brand preferences and compatibility. We will be connecting this to an Allen Bradley PLC via Ethernet/IP (I assume all major robot manufacturers will have this comm available).
What I am looking for help with is which brand would provide the best features for low volume prototyping/research? We will be continuously changing parts, geometries, paths, etc, so I don't want to end up with a cumbersome interface which makes these sorts of changes more difficult. Which brands offer the easiest to use offline simulation software?
I have been looking at Fanuc (mostly due to user base), ABB, Yaskawa, Kuka, etc.
Our robot capacity that I am aiming for would be 6 axis, 40-60 kg rated payload, and a reach of 2.0-2.5 m.
Cheers