This application required cutting rolls of flexible material into precise pieces and being taken up by a machine gripping station to be grabbed by the customer’s robotic application.
Material: Rolls of flexible material with a maximum width of 965mm [38”] and material thickness less than 10mm [0.39”]
Our Solution:
AZCO Corp. designed and manufactured a custom cut-to-length assembly with a heavy duty unwind, material positioning station and machine gripper station to precisely cut pieces of flexible material from a roll form.
The material is loaded onto the heavy duty unwind.
Safety chucks ensure the material is held in place on the air shaft.
An AC motor and drive will power the airshaft.
The unwind station includes a variable speed motor and control panel.
From the unwind, material travels under a dancer assembly.
An electric sensor will monitor the presence of the material loop and turn the motor on when the loop is not present.
A low product sensor monitors the roll diameter and will pause the machine when the roll reaches a predetermined diameter.
Unit can be operated in automatic or manual modes with a dry contact one shot input.
Material is then pulled into cut-to-length station by a set of precision ground urethane drive rollers.
Pressure between the rollers can be manually adjusted.
A toggle switch allows the operator to lift the idler roller for easy setup of a new web.
The unit includes precision ball bearings which do not require lubrication.
An internal guide directs the material from the drive rollers into the knife assembly.
A no product sensor will automatically shut the unit down when no product is sensed entering the rollers.
Material is then cut by a D2 Heat Treated Tool Steel blade into precise pieces.
The unit’s light tower will both visually and audibly alarm operators for any faults or errors.
A set of machine grippers will precisely grab the sheets of material once they’ve been cut.
Grippers are electronically geared to the feed system to control tension on the material during the feeding process.
This station will have a safety enclosure which is bolted closed.
An edge guiding system will monitor the tracking of the web of material and will adjust the unwind orientation to correct the web positioning.
Edge guide control panel is mounted by the unwind station.
A sensor monitors the edge of the web and adjusts accordingly to maintain a constant position.
This application required unwinding and cutting nonwoven material in roll form. The unit will be in a cleanroom environment, and the cut product will be used for medical applications.
Material: Roll of wide nonwoven material.
Our Solution:
AZCO Corp. designed and manufactured a custom cut-to-length system with a dual shaft unwind held within a Lexan enclosure.
Material is fed off a dual shaft dancer unwind.
Cantilevered design helps with loading.
Unit is equipped with an on/off switch and a three-position toggle switch for easy operation.
From the unwind, material feeds into the cut to length station.
The guillotine knife is servo driven, providing faster cycle times.
The entire machine is in a Lexan enclosure with interlocked doors.
All components are mounted on a common baseplate.
The baseplate is mounted to 4 aluminum extrusions forming a bench.
All construction materials are stainless steel, anodized aluminum, Lexan or urethane.
This application required unwinding a roll of polyester lamination film and cutting to length; eliminating static through the process.
Our Solution:
We designed a complete system which included a motorized unwind with dancer, a static ionizer, and a cut-to-length knife assembly.
The roll of material is loaded on to a cantilever design motorized unwind.
From the unwind shaft, the material goes over idler rollers and a dancer which unwinds the material based on demand.
The material travels past an edge guide system. An optic sensor monitors the position of the web and positions the unwind to maintain the edge position.
A servo motor actuator is used to position the unwind.
The material travels through a dancer accumulator and past an eye registration system into the drive roll station.
A static ionizer is placed in between the nip rollers and the knife assembly.
After leaving the drive roller assembly, the material is fed through the guillotine knife assembly and pauses while a robot grips the material. Once the robot grips the material, the guillotine is signaled to make the cut.
Once the material is removed, the next piece indexes into position and waits for the robot.
The entire assembly is mounted onto 2 baseplates.
The unit requires 220VAC 3-Phase and 80psi compressed air.
Material: 3/8” x 3″ wide pad, with sealed air between each pad. Requirements
Accurately feed the pads and cut an 8” piece to a registered position in between the sealed areas. The pads needed to come out in a position to be handed to a secondary process. Cycle requirements were 80 cuts per minute. Our Solution
We modified our standard FG-250 and added dual tractor drives to handle the three-dimensional padded product.
We had eye registration to position the material in the right location to the knife.
The unit was servo driven for high force and accuracy.
A Smartknife option was included on the knife assembly for higher cycle rates.
Infeed rollers with side guides guided the material into the tractor drive assembly.
The tractor drive was dual driven with a gear drive system.
There was a loop sensor to turn the unit on and off, so that the unit was always assured of material in the process.
