Energy chains for household appliance manufacturing

Profile

• What was needed: triflex® RS universal module
• Requirements: 180° movable gripper, strong bending around the axis requires high flexibility of the energy supply, three-shift operation up to six days a week requires high durability and resistance
• Industry: Domestic appliance manufacturer
• Success for the customer: Solution requires very little installation space and was designed to easily cope with maximum tensile forces caused by high accelerations, speeds and filling weights; only 24 hours passed between ordering, delivery and installation

The dishwasher product division of BSH Bosch und Siemens Hausgeräte GmbH manufactures around 10,000 dishwashers per day on nine assembly lines. The company responds extremely quickly to market requirements. The domestic appliance manufacturer's product programme currently consists of over 1,000 variants. The demands on flexibility in production and assembly are correspondingly high. All machines and systems must be able to adapt quickly to changing customer requirements.
For a new task in prefabrication, the household appliance manufacturer is using a so-called KR100 comp. robot. It ensures safe handling during the welding of two plastic moulded parts during prefabrication. The handling robot has been equipped with a double gripper for this purpose. It picks up the two semi-finished parts with the mechanical grippers and places them in a welding device. In turn, it picks up two finished components and places them on the conveyor technology. These tasks also gave rise to the special challenges faced by the household appliance manufacturer. This is because the gripper rotates through 180° and an additional strong bending around axis 5 during depositing requires an extremely flexible energy supply. The usual loop formation had to be avoided. In addition, the main focus was on durability. The systems are used in three-shift operation up to six days a week and downtimes are to be avoided as far as possible. The high quantities set in production should always be guaranteed by reliable technology.

To ensure the energy supply to the robot head, the robot was equipped with the universal module triflex® R-Set, with only 24 hours elapsing between ordering, delivery and installation. The advantage of the multidimensionally movable energy supply system is its compact design, which meant that the energy supply could be mounted quickly and in a space-saving manner at the existing attachment points on the robot. The chain comes with mounting brackets to securely fasten the energy chain, a gliding feed-through for close and parallel guidance on the robot arm and protectors for defined freedom of movement. Other features of the energy supply include a defined bending radius stop, a high torsion resistance of up to 360° and an integrated retaining spring that prevents loops from forming. 
In the specific application at BSH Bosch und Siemens Hausgeräte GmbH, a plate with the electrical box was attached above the triflex® RS universal module, so that only a small amount of installation space is required overall. This not only has the advantage of being able to remain within the robot contour, but the robot arm, to which the chain fits snugly, can operate any application. The energy supply system is designed in such a way that it can easily cope with the maximum tensile forces caused by acceleration, speed and filling weights.