FANUC Robotics

Robots for Flame Treating: http://www.fanucrobotics.co...

Flame treating and automation expert RLS Enterprises developed this robotic flame-treating cell to treat circuit boards. The flame treating process offers many advantages in treating the surfaces of a variety of manufactured products; for these circuit boards the flame treatment helps to increase surface tension, increasing the adhesion of silicone. This cell utilizes the highly versatile FANUC M-20iA robot with integrated FANUC iRVision.

The process starts as a circuit board enters the cell on a conveyor, and the robot is alerted that there's a part ready for pickup.  The robot's unique end of arm tooling picks the board with its tooling "fingers" from each side. The board is flipped, and placed over a bar code scanner to verify the correct board is running. The board is then moved over the flame, turned 90 degrees, and brought back over the flame to treat both sides. The board is again flipped and grabbed by the robot's suction cup tooling, and the other side is flame treated.  The robot flips the board 90 degrees once more and goes back over the flame. The robot then lifts the board clear of any heat and rotates around the cell to present the board above an iRVision camera. The camera records the exact location of how the board is held by the tooling and relays this information to the robot. In turn, the robot uses the information gathered by the iRVision camera to drop the board precisely into the bottom aluminum mold.  The robot travels to pick up the top of the mold, and places it over the bottom mold, enclosing the circuit board.  Finally the robot spins around to pick up the next circuit board, and the process repeats.

With an approximate cycle time of 45 seconds, this automated flame treating system with FANUC M-20iA Robot is a fast, effective solution for manufacturers looking to reduce costs and streamline production. To learn more about custom flame treating systems from FANUC Robotics Authorized Integrator RLS Enterprises, please visit their website at http://www.rlsenterprises.com.