A little zen for you:
Interesting stuff. Amazing how specialized these machines are.
9 Likes
I watch a lot of factory videos. For some reason, my favorite thing in all of them is this little rotating brush mechanism for folding over a piece of tape to keep the boxes closed.
2 Likes
During a road trip decades ago we stopped for a GE lightbulb plant tour outside Columbus Ohio.
It was a nice break and an interesting afternoon.
I was looking for the tour information and found out GE is not making incandescent lightbulbs anymore.
Seems like blasphemy. What is next? Burger King not selling burgers?
2 Likes
Impossible™️
9 Likes
Personally I am far more impressed with the machines that are flexible enough to do many things that are as specialized as that. A million dollar machine that cornered the market on something and made much more money running everyone else out of the business is still a chunk of scrap when there is no more interest in that “something”.
However the machine that can do many jobs and any design can allow production to turn on a dime and nearly that cost.
2 Likes
I actually watched the whole thing!
1 Like
Essentially, Automation Robotics.
Did some repurpose design on robotic arms in the last decade or so before I retired.
More work building new feed and intake mechanisms around them than programming them to do a different task.
1 Like
There was one I can’t find now that was a mechanical arm that had a standard mechanism for putting the arm anywhere and then a series of gadgets to attach from camera for quality control, to pick and place, to welding, or cutting by tool or plasma, etc They had a laser end tool but I suppose that would need more shielding. Presumably a shop would have several to use where needed. the video had the pick and place picking up M&Ms from a pile and organizing them like soldiers separated by color.
Did you see Wintergarten’s latest with the desktop wire bender? I know I don’t need it, but I want it.
2 Likes
The robot manufacturers and resellers/installers love showing off robot parlor tricks at trade shows. It can really be mesmerizing.
This topic was automatically closed 32 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.