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Universal Robots AR3, 5, and 10. Anyone bought one and automated loading machines

We purchased a UR10 several months back, but have been so friggin busy getting product out the door that we have not had time to do much but play with it. Pretty solid unit. When we do make time, it will be used for machine loading/unloading.
 
We purchased a UR10 several months back, but have been so friggin busy getting product out the door that we have not had time to do much but play with it. Pretty solid unit. When we do make time, it will be used for machine loading/unloading.

Thats my problem, trying just to go look at one this week. They seem slow but consistent.
I think they could be pretty useful. just gotta use your imagination and you can pretty much do anything with it.
 
Thats my problem, trying just to go look at one this week. They seem slow but consistent.
I think they could be pretty useful. just gotta use your imagination and you can pretty much do anything with it.

They are not as slow as some of their cheaper competitors.

Have you been on their website and taken the class? If not, I highly recommend it. You can also contact them and they will send out a rep to demo it for you in your shop. They have a new model out now, cant recall the nomenclature, but look into the new model rather than the older UR models.
 
There is a video of some doing packaging where they are moving pretty damn fast.

Gobo, what are you doing for end effectors?
 
They are not as slow as some of their cheaper competitors.

Have you been on their website and taken the class? If not, I highly recommend it. You can also contact them and they will send out a rep to demo it for you in your shop. They have a new model out now, cant recall the nomenclature, but look into the new model rather than the older UR models.
no I havent taken the class, but been all over there website and hit youtube vids. the ones I seen of theres seemed slow on the parts changing part.
The local sales rep here in phoenix offered to bring one to the shop for a demo on one of the cnc's. I'm trying to get by his place to check them out before hand.
I havent looked at any others, probably wont as they guys seem to have there shit together. I was hoping to order a self centering vise before I get a demo. but after study'ing the machine a little better from pics and vids. there no need to as you can make spring loaded grabbers to set the part in a hydraulic kurt vice. Thats what I like about thee you can modify the fingers to suit you.
still curious how it would work on second op stuff for location on vise's but thinking a spring loaded fixture on the robot should take care of that and be able to repeat dead nuts as far as flatness.




There is a video of some doing packaging where they are moving pretty damn fast.

Gobo, what are you doing for end effectors?
the packaging looks fast but the part loading vids looked slow, until I see it in person I wont know.
 
From what others here have said you can take advantage of the load sensors to have the robot push the part against the fixed stops. Perhaps no need for "compensation" with spring loaded anything.

If they can move fast at packaging then they can move just as fast at part loading. Many of the part loading videos have the robot opening and closing doors and pushing the green button, obviously not concerned with cycle time.
 
From what others here have said you can take advantage of the load sensors to have the robot push the part against the fixed stops. Perhaps no need for "compensation" with spring loaded anything.

If they can move fast at packaging then they can move just as fast at part loading. Many of the part loading videos have the robot opening and closing doors and pushing the green button, obviously not concerned with cycle time.

I would think the problem with load sensors is other than the cost, you could get false readings like if a part is .001 or .003 bigger than the last. with springs of some sort they would act like someones hand so to speak and allow for this or that.
I dont know thats just my thought process.

you defiantly can save alot of time by not closing and opening doors or pushing green buttons. but its pretty bad ass, gives kinda a human feel. I am sure you can control the feed rates of it in there programming.
whats nice about them slow or not is that its going to run steady until you turn it off. its going to keep running when your on another machine and doing a set-up, or inspecting parts.
 
They look easy as can be for a lathe or something but the mill is where Im having a hard time dreaming up the work holding. Ive looked at the airvise and is a reasonable alternative to shunk or something but not sure if it will hold tight enough
 
I never played with an airvise, with the exception of air collet fixtures for the mill, they work fine, just dont know about an air vise. I guess that would depend on what your milling. we clamp very light on our parts, if you clamp to hard thin parts will bend but we only use cut alum soft jaws and fixtures on what we mill
 
I installed a UR5 on a VF2 for a customer. It was the new e-series and the force feature worked great for pushing parts into a stop just like an operator would. They are a little slower (than the Epson I have in front of my mill) but that's generally because they're ran at reduced settings for operator safety. The big advantage I see is ease of setup for short run jobs and no safety cage. If you can run unmanned all night, speed isn't as great of a concern. Here's a link to a clip of it- I still need to optimize a lot on flip times, etc. but it shows basic idea: YouTube
 
I installed a UR5 on a VF2 for a customer. It was the new e-series and the force feature worked great for pushing parts into a stop just like an operator would. They are a little slower (than the Epson I have in front of my mill) but that's generally because they're ran at reduced settings for operator safety. The big advantage I see is ease of setup for short run jobs and no safety cage. If you can run unmanned all night, speed isn't as great of a concern. Here's a link to a clip of it- I still need to optimize a lot on flip times, etc. but it shows basic idea: YouTube

That is cool. I am hoping to pick one up this year.
the more I check them out the more practical they seem.
whats the model number for those kurt vises?
Does the chip fan work better than having a air hose on the bot?
 
Those are Kurt 3610 V vises. They're the backwards style which is nice because it keeps the work closer to the robot (& operator). The robot operates them pneumatically with our CNC vise actuators which are removable to switch back to normal operator. CNC Vise Actuator - Rapid Design Solutions
The chip fan works a lot better than the robot air hose- the robot actually has one but it's best for light blowing so coolant/chips don't get in the robot joints (UR can't handle direct coolant spray without boot). The chip fan does a good job of getting all the chips away from the vise area too, especially when used with thru coolant.
 
Interesting video. I wonder if you can easily change the order of motions? It looked to me like some of the wrist motions after placing the part could be done after the arm moved out of the machine and the door was closed as no cutting gets done until the door is fully closed.

The vise actuator looks like a killer idea, even without the robot.

So where is the soft faced hammer head on the robot? Close vise with low air pressure, bump the part with the hammer head and turn up the air pressure.
 
Yeah, the motion order can be switched around pretty easily with the touchscreen "conversational" interface. We have optimized a fair bit since just getting the spindle turning initially. The main thing was speeding up the slow wrist flips. The system is designed to be easy to setup for new parts so I wrote some canned type subroutines that start & end at a "safe" position kind of like a rapid plane in CNC; this makes programming new jobs easier but if running a lot it's worth weeding those wasted moves out.

I'll have to work on adding that hammer head! :) On some other robot jobs, I've used big spotters to push the parts down in vise tho... first time I've seen any benefit from a dull spotter
 
I'm an integrator for Universal Robots specializing in the CNC side of things, and yeah I generally set my clients up with air/hydro vises, and basically run them off a air valve driven by the UR robot controller.
 
Have any of you intergrated any of these with a Fanuc control. It seems that all i see are Haas controls. Is it possible to do without a mega buck installation? Thanks
 
I've demo'd the UR10 with a Robotiq gripper and was impressed. Compared to a regular, non-collaborative robot, the UR is much easier and faster to program.

When the time is right, we will explore the UR in greater detail, specifically with regards to vision systems. I'd like to see the elimination of hard tooling, i.e. part-specific trays and grippers, in favor of vision and "universal" grippers.
 
Have any of you intergrated any of these with a Fanuc control. It seems that all i see are Haas controls. Is it possible to do without a mega buck installation? Thanks

I generally use 3 M-code outputs from CNC to robot (Request load, Load type output 1, Load type output 2) and just one input to CNC from robot (a relay wired in parallel with cycle start switch). Have used this for Haas and Mitsubishi controls, Fanuc would be no different. It's fairly cost effective. I like to use opto-isolated signal relays for reading the M-codes and pushing go; this way CNC and robot are electrically separated. It's important not to mess with factory CNC door switches and interlocks: the robot should behave just like an operator in that it can't open CNC while running and CNC can't be started with door open.
 








 
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