The “Bang Bang” of Pneumatic Grippers

A robot­ic grip­per, prob­a­bly one of the most impor­tant parts of an indus­tri­al robot, manip­u­lates work pieces dur­ing cer­tain parts of the man­u­fac­tur­ing process. There are sev­er­al dif­fer­ent types of grip­pers. One mod­el, the pneu­mat­ic grip­per, is a set of met­al jaws that come togeth­er and pick up objects. They are called ​“bang bang” grip­pers because of the sound that is made when their jaws lock around something.

Pneu­mat­ic grip­pers are one of the most wide­ly used grip­pers in man­u­fac­tur­ing. The grip­per oper­ates on a cylin­der run by com­pressed air. When the air is sup­plied, the grip­per jaws will close on an object, mak­ing it pos­si­ble for the robot arm to move the piece.

These grip­pers have two types of grip­ping action: exter­nal grip­ping and inter­nal grip­ping. Exter­nal grip­ping, a pop­u­lar method for hold­ing objects, is sim­plis­tic. The grip­pers close, and the force of the jaws holds the item in place. Inter­nal grip­ping is used when the object needs to be held from the cen­ter. The open­ing force of the grip­per holds the object secure­ly in place.

There are also two dif­fer­ent types of pneu­mat­ic robot grip­pers – the par­al­lel grip­per and the angu­lar grip­per. The par­al­lel grip­per moves open and shut hor­i­zon­tal­ly, while the angu­lar grip­per opens and clos­es ver­ti­cal­ly. If nec­es­sary, man­u­fac­tur­ers can also use three-jaw or tog­gle-style grip­pers, depend­ing on the mate­r­i­al being handled.

When choos­ing a pneu­mat­ic grip­per, man­u­fac­tur­ers need to take many fac­tors into con­sid­er­a­tion that could help or hin­der the appli­ca­tion. They need to con­sid­er the part shape, weight and acces­si­bil­i­ty. Also, they need to con­sid­er the envi­ron­ment the grip­per will be work­ing in and the amount of time the item needs to be held. Once all these vari­ables are con­sid­ered, con­sumers can make an informed deci­sion on what type of pneu­mat­ic grip­per to invest in.

Robots​.com, a cer­ti­fied inte­gra­tor of sev­er­al end-of-arm tool­ing options, includ­ing pneu­mat­ic grip­pers, has a large selec­tion of grip­pers avail­able for cus­tomiza­tion on your indus­tri­al robot. For more infor­ma­tion, con­tact Robots​.com today at 877−762−6881 or online. Our high­ly qual­i­fied staff will help you find the per­fect grip­per for your process.