Collection grippers enable highly productive collect & place applications

10-11-2013 - For the first time, SCHUNK, the competence leader for clamping technology and gripping systems, presents a universally usable collection gripper, the RVK, which is able to significantly increase the productivity of pick & place applications. Instead of gripping components and then individually moving and placing them, as is usual in high-performance assembly, the collect & place principle used by the RVK has several parts being first collected successively, then moved to the assembly site and deposited there in rapid succession.

In this way, the traverse paths can be significantly reduced and up to six different parts are handled in the same cycle. The collection gripper from the innovative family-owned company can be equipped with up to six standard grippers from the world's most comprehensive product range for gripping systems by SCHUNK. For example, with the highly efficient SCHUNK MPG-plus 20 to 40 small-component parallel grippers, the SCHUNK MPZ 16 to 38 small-part centric grippers, the universally usable SCHUNK PGN-plus 40 to 64 two-finger parallel grippers or the SCHUNK PZN-plus 40 to 64 three-finger centric grippers. Due to the integrated valve technology and an electro-pneumatic rotary feed-through which is also already integrated, one gripper can be actuated at a time while the others remain under pressure in the gripping position. All grippers can be monitored at any time independently of one another. After an emergency stop, the reliably gripped components can be removed individually. The RVK can be optionally attached to the SCHUNK ERS 135 and 170 rotary modules, the SCHUNK RST-D 087 ring indexing table, or directly to robots with central bore holes. It allows a particularly compact system design, thus being able to replace gripper stations and quick-change systems in space-limited applications.