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Expert Solutions
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Customer Objective
Trim injection molded seals from a sprue using a method that provides tight tolerances and does not pull, stretch or tear the material before cutting each gate free with no burrs.
Project Description
Provide an automatic system capable of de-gating seals that do not hold their shape, are extremely pliable and require tight tolerance cuts to make an acceptable assembly.
The irregular shape of each pliable seal is captured with a vision system to identify the gate locations that attach it to the sprue. Coordinate position off-sets are then calculated for each gate location and sent to an X-Y linear servo stage that will position the seal below a LASER to obtain precise cuts to remove (or de-gate) the seal from the sprue.
The LASER cut line will follow the position feedback information delivered to the servo positioning stage from the vision inspection system.
Manufacturing Benefits
The high degree of flexibility obtained using vision inspection and model specific programming for the cut line positioning allows for a rapid change between models and a reduced tooling inventory. Programming changes provide the capability to adapt to new models without re-tooling or purchasing new capital equipment.
Laser trimming eliminates the high maintenance required with traditional line-to-line, high tolerance trimming dies and provides a higher yield of acceptable seals where the profile and cut locations are known before processing.
Integrated Technologies
Vision position guidance is derived with a Cognex In-Sight Vision Inspection System, a Parker linear servo X-Y positioning stage is integrated with a Photonics Industries Nd:YV04 fixed cutting position LASER and the control system includes an Allen Bradley PLC and PanelView operator interface terminal.
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