Palletizing Heavy, Loose Boxes

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MATERIAL HANDLED

Heavy cartons of paper (68 pounds) closed by a loose box-top secured with 2 flimsy plastic straps

The Challenge

A customer with a gantry robot needs a lightweight vacuum gripper that can securely grip 68 pound boxes, even if they are not securely closed with tape or a hot glue seal. The vacuum EOAT must also maintain high performance in the dusty environment of paper processing.Image

THE SOLUTION

Paper Carton Vacuum Gripper

Real-World Material Handling

In a perfect world, every carton is perfectly shaped, sealed with hot glue, loaded with lightweight goods, moving evenly down a conveyor to be whisked away by a robot's vacuum gripper. In the real world, boxes may be loaded to maximum capacity and held together with flimsy straps.
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High-flow Millibar Vacuum Pumps Power Custom Solution

Millibar Robotics developed a custom solution using Millibar high flow, dirt tolerant vacuum generators driving 10 suction cups on a lightweight carbon fiber frame.  This application is for handling boxes filled with reams of paper so not only is the environment dusty from the corrugated but also includes dust from the paper slitting process.  This application taps two Millibar strengths: 1) producing high performance venturi vacuum pumps that are compact enough to mount directly to the EOAT, and 2) designing lightweight, high strength, turnkey robot end effectors.
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