Hello, Anyone have experience with implementing a micro sensor to sense product? Our Robots are used to insert a product into a work collet. Sometimes product jams and if so there is currently no logic to stop the program.
The robot then tries to pick and place into a spot that is occupied resulting in a crash. We need constant operator attention to avoid this. Product we need to sense can be as small as .020" dia. and are gold plated, somewhat shiny. So a reflective sensor or even a sensor emitter setup would work.
Any help is appreciated.
Can you be a little more specific? (Pictures help, I’m terrible at visualizing things in my mind.) Are you looking just to check the absence/presence of a part in a fixture or something? We use all kinds of sensors and I’m sure I could give you part numbers for things we’ve used if I understand your application better. Or are you looking for the robot to do some form of verification at multiple spots like a pallet wizard or something?
Without seeing the actual application, one thing that comes to mind is to implement a force check on the insertion of the product into the collet. At the very least, this way instead of the robot just crashing, it can make a branching decision (go place the part somewhere else, move out of the way and set an alarm, attempt to reset the stuck part, etc.)
Hi Eric, Yes we are looking to check absence / presence of a part. I am including an image to better describe. The gold part in the center is aprox .020 dia
And this part is properly placed, or improperly? And can it be inserted anywhere in that larger hole, or is there a tolerance you need to maintain? And one last question, what material is it? If it’s conductive, there’s a wide range of sensors with varying degrees of detection distance that can pick that up. If it’s strong enough, you may be able to just jog the UR robot down until Tool Contact and then see where it hit. If it hit at Z = whatever, you’d know you hit the wire (part detected) vs Z = whatever - length of the wire which would indicate there is no part there.
Part shown is properly placed into a crimper. In the event of a misfire it might be offset from that location, or bent. Either way we would need a sensor to view a “window” that probe might reside. If all goes well robot removes the part, sensor would view that no part is present, then program repeats. Parts are delicate made from beryillium copper and gold plated. I’m thinking a beam type sensor receiver / emitter. A part left behind would break the beam, halt, and wait for operator to clear.
https://www.turck.us/en/product/0000002a000136280002003a
Here’s a turck switch for example that we use for weld fixtures. I just held a .035 diameter weld wire up to it and it saw it. Can’t confirm for sure about .020. Keyence makes good emitter/receiver sensors that I have used in the past as well, so you may try getting in touch with them to spec something out.
thanks! I will check these out. Do you foresee any issues with implementing this sensor into UR program?
Nope. The turck one’s we’ve used before. They are just 24v sensors. Both can come in PNP/NPN so just be aware of that and order the PNP ones if you want to just plug it into the robot controller.
SensoPart’s F10 Bluelight-Sensors could do the job:
Detect the difference | SensoPart