DressPack Options for ABB Robots

A robot dress­pack refers to the cable and hose rout­ing for a robot sys­tem. ABB Robot­ics offers a few dif­fer­ent dress pack options for cus­tomers, depend­ing on their need for com­plex­i­ty and flex­i­bil­i­ty in their robot sys­tems. Some dress packs are exter­nal, while oth­ers are inter­nal­ly rout­ed, and each have their pros and cons for ABB mate­r­i­al han­dling and spot weld­ing robots.

The ABB Exter­nal Dress­Pack is rec­om­mend­ed for pro­duc­tion setups that do not have a lot of need for flex­i­bil­i­ty and wrist move­ment com­plex­i­ty. These cables are rout­ed on the out­side of the robot, which allows for easy adjust­ment or removal of the cables and hoses for repair pur­pos­es, but also expos­es them to more wear and tear over time. There is also an exter­nal dress pack with a retract func­tion avail­able, for cus­tomers who need a lit­tle more flex­i­bil­i­ty in their robot sys­tem. The retract func­tion pulls the cables and hoses back­ward when the robot is mov­ing, which keeps them clos­er to the robot arm dur­ing oper­a­tion. This helps the robot to avoid inter­fer­ing with tool­ing or oth­er robots in the vicin­i­ty. The exter­nal Dress­Pack option is com­mon­ly offered for the ABB IRB 6620, IRB 6640, IRB 6650S, and IRB 7600 robots. 

The ABB Inte­grat­ed Dress­Pack, which is avail­able on the IRB 6640 robot­ic mate­r­i­al han­dling sys­tem, is able to head off all the prob­lems that come with hav­ing the swing cables on the exter­nal dress pack. Accord­ing to ABB, swing­ing cables can wear fast, and when rout­ed inside and along the robot arm, the cables are firm­ly in place, which pro­tects them from wear and col­li­sion when robot is in motion. The ser­vice life of an inter­nal dress­pack is sig­nif­i­cant­ly longer than an exter­nal dress­pack. By choos­ing an inter­nal­ly rout­ed dress­pack from ABB, man­u­fac­tur­ers can expect their hoses to last 6 – 8 years, as opposed to 1 – 2 years with the exter­nal option. 

How­ev­er, this is not the only advan­tage of choos­ing the ABB Inter­nal Dress­Pack. Offline pro­gram­ming pro­vides a great advan­tage with the inter­nal­ly-rout­ed dress­pack. Pro­gram­mers are able to pro­gram a new line and intro­duce pieces into the already exist­ing line, while also allow­ing for the fine tun­ing of the pro­gram­ming, accord­ing to ABB. Then there is the obvi­ous com­pact­ness of the robot. With­out the cables rout­ed on the out­side of the robot arm, the wrist is able to get into more com­pact areas, like the nar­row parts of a car body, and there is less chance for inter­fer­ence with oth­er robots work­ing on the part at the same time. 

While these dress­packs are dif­fer­ent, they do have com­mon fea­tures that span the entire series. Dress­Packs have min­i­mal unique parts, which allow them to be more ver­sa­tile for both mate­r­i­al han­dling and spot weld­ing appli­ca­tions. As a com­pact solu­tion, there is also more ver­sa­til­i­ty when design­ing the sys­tem with offline sim­u­la­tion. Dress­packs are designed for easy main­te­nance, repair, or replace­ment. They can be adjust­ed with­out spe­cial tool­ing and indi­vid­ual parts on the dress­pack can be replaced as necessary. 

Dress­Pack options come with the spot weld­ing and mate­r­i­al han­dling robots men­tioned above. The advan­tage from pur­chas­ing a robot and dress­pack from Robots​.com is that your dress­pack will be tai­lored to your spe­cif­ic cus­tomized appli­ca­tion, sys­tem, or work cell, instead of get­ting a more gen­er­al­ized option. 

It is impor­tant to research which dress­pack is right for your appli­ca­tion and robot sys­tem. Our Robots​.com tech­ni­cians and sales team can help you decide which route to go. Con­tact us today at 877−762−6881 or reach our experts online.