Pick it up and put it down – gripping with suction

With all the dif­fer­ent robot­ic grip­pers on the mar­ket — like claw, bag and vac­u­um grip­pers — it may be dif­fi­cult to decide which one is right for your spe­cif­ic application.

So, how does one decide on what grip­per to use? Many times, the item your robot is han­dling will be the decid­ing fac­tor: how much does it weigh? What is the size of the item? The shape?

By ask­ing these ques­tions, man­u­fac­tur­ers can deci­pher whether they need a claw grip­per, a bag grip­per or a pneu­mat­ic grip­per, all of which work with claw or jaw type actu­a­tors. For some items though, like panes of glass and oth­er flat objects, there is only one grip­per to choose – the vac­u­um gripper.

A vac­u­um grip­per is attached to the wrist of an indus­tri­al robot. It is made of a series of plas­tic or polyurethane suc­tion cups fash­ioned into sev­er­al rows. The robot arm low­ers the grip­per onto the item and applies pres­sure. Then, a vac­u­um is acti­vat­ed to secure the suc­tion cups to the piece. Once the piece is moved, the vac­u­um is deac­ti­vat­ed and the suc­tion cups release the item.

Vac­u­um robot­ic grip­pers are use­ful when stack­ing items on pal­lets or mov­ing items in and out of dif­fer­ent machines. The soft­ness of the cups does not dam­age the integri­ty of the piece, the way a claw-like grip­per might. Their accu­ra­cy and speed when oper­at­ing on a line are ben­e­fi­cial to man­u­fac­tur­ers as well. The increase in pro­duc­tion saves costs on pro­duc­tion and labor.

Inter­est­ed in automat­ing your mate­r­i­al han­dling appli­ca­tion with a vac­u­um robot grip­per? Robots​.com has the answer for you! Robots​.com is a cer­ti­fied inte­gra­tor for many end effec­tor com­pa­nies, includ­ing sev­er­al grip­per mod­els. Our staff will help you deter­mine which grip­per will be the best for your facility’s process.

For more infor­ma­tion, con­tact Robots​.com today online or at 877−762−6881.