Energy chain for high lifting speeds in press automation system

ROBOWORKER in Weingarten mainly designs and manufactures automation and testing systems for the production of indexable inserts. The company offers systems for almost the entire manufacturing process for indexable inserts. ROBOWORKER stands for particularly flexible and compact systems, but also for sophisticated control software. Using the TwinCAT real-time operating system from BECKHOFF, ROBOWORKER has developed a flexible interface for linear robots and configurable application software that optimally solves even difficult loading and palletising tasks with little programming effort.
Indexable inserts are pressed from carbide powder. The press automation systems from ROBOWORKER remove the sensitive green parts from the press and palletise them for the subsequent sintering process.
ROBOWORKER relies consistently on linear robots to ensure precision in the pick&place process while maintaining high throughput speeds. This enables the Swabians to realise high-speed removal with a positioning repeatability of up to +/-0.02 mm. The extremely high speeds and accelerations therefore place special demands on all components as well as the cable routing in the press automation system. The high lifting speeds and stroke rates require a particularly stable and flexible cable and line routing. In addition to a small bend radius, the guidance should also be particularly space-saving. This not only helps with the dimensioning of the solution later on, but also saves energy during operation.

For this machine, ROBOWORKER housed the power and data cables for the linear robots and grippers as well as the pneumatic hoses in the igus ® energy chain E4.1L for the first time, which was ideally suited for this application. The energy chain now used has several specifications that were decisive for this project. It is characterised by high stability despite its small size. The low dead weight of the E4.1L version and high dynamics for the high lifting speeds and stroke rates were among the most important requirements for the planned application. But even the particularly small bend radius poses no problems for the new solution.
The high requirements in terms of acceleration and speed were also completely fulfilled. In the X-axis, the stroke is 1355 mm, the bend radius 175 mm. In the Y-axis and Z-axis, the stroke is 500 mm, the bend radius is 100 mm and 125 mm.
The low mass of the cable guide, despite its stable design, also reduces the risk of vibrations and oscillations. This was also a challenge in view of the accelerations, which are more than 3.5 times the natural gravity. At the same time, ROBOWOKER uses a specially designed cast frame on which the seed system stands extremely steady.
ROBOWORKER has had nothing but good experiences with the energy chains from igus® so far. Generally speaking, failures due to cable or energy chain faults are very rare, praises Sautter, the design manager. Energy chains with a minimal bend radius have already been used in previous projects. In some cases, customised products were even supplied in order to meet ROBOWORKER's requirements.