Something got dropped off at my Mechatronics lab!

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Dodge72

Dodge72

Odd one out
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A full sized Kuka industrial robot! All electrical, capable of a payload of 130 lbs.

A bit of background. I'm a student studying Mechatronics, which, before you ask, is a mixture of mechanical and electrical engineering with programming thrown in. Highly focused on manufacturing and automation. Lots of hands on! I was stopping by dropping off take home hardware when I saw that in the window. Not yet hooked up, but it's a big boy compared to our small trainer robots which are only 2-3 feet tall. I'm excited to see what it will be used for. I've programmed the smaller robots and it'll be the same, it's just that this one needs a much bigger cage. Definitely need more caution and safety working with this one. We also got another smaller robot with a vision system. That'll enable it to see objects it's interacting with, instead of just going in blind.

I love my program, we get the coolest things to program and work on! It's a lot of hard work to figure things out but extremely rewarding to see it come to life and work. Does anybody work in manufacturing or automation?
 
Hun, lemmie just say you ain't gonna be a "student" very long. You're bout a genius. lol

That thing is badass.
 
At Legoland they got a ride that has a seat on the end of that arm and it flings you around in 3 dimensions.
 
Very cool! I have designed and built several Pharmaceutical manufacturing plants that use robots like that for a variety of purposes. This is me with one of my favorites...part of a washing, drying and loading system for for 700 lb baskets of stainless steel ball milling media. It includes vision location systems and safety light curtains.

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You are going to have a blast “teaching” that robot to do things!
 
Oh yeah, and make sure to give your robot a name. It was always a tradition for us. The Fanuc in the pic was named Gort (the same name as the robot from the movie “The Day the Earth Stood Still.”)

:)
 
Dodge72 said:
Does anybody work in manufacturing or automation?
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Those Kuka's are pretty neat. We have one or two downtown and are getting some others in our lab. I work for Rockwell in the motion control business. Lots of fun toys to play with. I've been pulled over to some of the linear motion projects and there is some really neat stuff going on and customers doing a lot of integration with Kuka and other robots. Look up some of the videos on the iTRAK and MagnaMotion for some interesting automation examples. We just launched a small frame version of the iTRAK. The movers can hit 5 meters per second max V, which is hauling. We live in interesting times.
 
hemi71x said:
Looks like lotsa $$$$$$$$$$ there.
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Oh for sure. The instructor told me the price and I was surprised. THEN he told me that was just for the robot itself. The whole control cabinet was separate. Yikes!

Ddaddy said:
Very cool! I have designed and built several Pharmaceutical manufacturing plants that use robots like that for a variety of purposes. This is me with one of my favorites...part of a washing, drying and loading system for for 700 lb baskets of stainless steel ball milling media. It includes vision location systems and safety light curtains.

View attachment 1715711567

You are going to have a blast “teaching” that robot to do things!
Click to expand...

That is super cool! We've got mini Fanuc robots for training, and I have my Level 1 CERT from them as well. We'll be diving into vision systems after the break which will be interesting. How is working in the Pharmaceutical plants?

gzig5 said:
Those Kuka's are pretty neat. We have one or two downtown and are getting some others in our lab. I work for Rockwell in the motion control business. Lots of fun toys to play with. I've been pulled over to some of the linear motion projects and there is some really neat stuff going on and customers doing a lot of integration with Kuka and other robots. Look up some of the videos on the iTRAK and MagnaMotion for some interesting automation examples. We just launched a small frame version of the iTRAK. The movers can hit 5 meters per second max V, which is hauling. We live in interesting times.
Click to expand...

Thank you, I'll definitely look into that! It really amazes me what people have thought of putting these robots and other control systems into use for. Truly creative and clever. I've got a lot to learn lol.
 
Dodge72 said:
That is super cool! We've got mini Fanuc robots for training, and I have my Level 1 CERT from them as well. We'll be diving into vision systems after the break which will be interesting. How is working in the Pharmaceutical plants?
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They work great! We have them in 4 different plants and make over 2 billion dosage units per year in each plant. They have been going strong for more than 8 years now.

System design, set-up and robotic programming is the hard part...after that they just do what they do, damn near forever.
 
Dodge72 said:
Oh for sure. The instructor told me the price and I was surprised. THEN he told me that was just for the robot itself. The whole control cabinet was separate. Yikes!



That is super cool! We've got mini Fanuc robots for training, and I have my Level 1 CERT from them as well. We'll be diving into vision systems after the break which will be interesting. How is working in the Pharmaceutical plants?



Thank you, I'll definitely look into that! It really amazes me what people have thought of putting these robots and other control systems into use for. Truly creative and clever. I've got a lot to learn lol.
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Let us in on the secret?
How Much $$$$$$$
 
IDK about the one they bought, but the Fanuc I showed was $350k about 8 years ago.
 
Johnny 5, stupid name


Don't tell me I'm the only one who sees the resemblance?
 
My current day job has me tending Versa Built robot cells loading Haas machines. Saves a lot of monotony loading blanks into machines, but can also cause frustration when the robots don't. Just when I got to where I could intuitively think CNC, now I have to think like a robot (no, really it's a thing).
 
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