Spinning their way into the competition: Robotic Spindles

Spin­dles attached to a robot’s arm must be flex­i­ble, durable, and meet the pay­load lim­i­ta­tions of the robot for prop­er robot­ic machin­ing. Robot­ic machin­ing presents unique chal­lenges, like light­weight con­struc­tion to min­i­mize pay­load stress, con­t­a­m­i­na­tion pro­tec­tion, and oper­a­tion from sev­er­al angles.

Robot­ic spin­dles should match the manufacturer’s needs. There are light­weight, small mod­els to fit into tight spaces, as well as robust, pow­er­ful mod­els that are ide­al for harsh mate­r­i­al removal oper­a­tions. Depen­dent on the needs of each appli­ca­tion, a spin­dle should be cho­sen with care. 

A spin­dle for drilling appli­ca­tions should be select­ed after con­sid­er­ing the hole diam­e­ter and depth, the tol­er­ance, and the need for addi­tion­al machin­ing. Robot­ic milling (engrav­ing and rout­ing appli­ca­tions) spin­dles are used when high-speed mate­r­i­al removal or high pre­ci­sion sur­face fin­ish­es are required. Grind­ing spin­dles use a grind­ing wheel to grind away met­al, glass, ceram­ics, or oth­er mate­ri­als to the desired shape or fin­ish. Debur­ring and deflash­ing spin­dles are designed with high speed and low torque. Buff­ing, fin­ish­ing, and pol­ish­ing spin­dles should allow the tool to glide gen­tly over the fin­ished part with high RPMs and low horsepower. 

Dyno­max and Fanuc teamed up to cre­ate a flex­i­ble, durable robot­ic arm spin­dle line. The col­lab­o­ra­tion result­ed in a robot­ic sys­tem that saves time and low­ers costs for mate­r­i­al removal while com­mit­ting to excep­tion­al prod­uct qual­i­ty. The 14 – 2A-C-1370 spin­dle is part of the series of high-per­for­mance spin­dles with low weights to min­i­mize pay­loads. This spin­dle is designed for robot­ic mate­r­i­al removal on sev­er­al Fanuc robots, includ­ing the F‑200iB, M‑16iB, M‑710iB, M‑900iA, R‑2000iA, and S‑500iB. The 14 – 2A-C-1370 spin­dle is one of 50 robot­ic spin­dles in this line with a robust design. It offers supe­ri­or con­t­a­m­i­na­tion pro­tec­tion and is com­pact and light­weight. Its ceram­ic bear­ings and water cool­ing extend its life and allow high­er speed operation. 

Dyno­max also revealed a new robot­ic spin­dle matrix designed to reduce spin­dle selec­tion for mate­r­i­al removal robots. The matrix is down­load­able and pin­points the best spin­dle tool for each robot and spe­cif­ic appli­ca­tion. Matri­ces are avail­able for Fanuc, KUKA, and Motoman robot man­u­fac­tur­ers. If you are inter­est­ed in any of their robot­ic spin­dles, con­tact us today on how to imple­ment one online or at 877−762−6881.