More Machine Spotlights – 40 years of TQC (Page 7)
Four decades of project work across aerospace, automotive, medical, and precision engineering leaves a substantial archive to draw from. The systems featured here represent a range of engineering problems — each one different in scale, sector, or technical requirement — and the solutions developed to meet them.
If a particular application is relevant to work you’re currently scoping, contact us to discuss the detail and identify who we can use our experience to help you.
- Automatic assembly line with robots and bowl feeders (supplied in 2014)
- Facility for assembly and testing of a multi-part, high volume product.
- A complex assembly incorporating many moulded plastic parts needed to be produced at around 1 part per minute to meet production volumes.
- Manual assembly would be very labour intensive so automation was required be produce cost effective parts.
- A pallet track conveyor transferred parts through a number of stations for sequential assembly and testing of the product.
- Robotic handling, working with bowl feeding of bulk parts automated the complex assembly operation.
- When automation was not possible manual stations were included on the production line.
- Integrated automatic electrical, function and leak testing stations provided quality assurance to the assembly process.
- Working with the customer to fully understand the assembly process and testing requirements ensured a facility was supplied that produced parts at the correct throughtput.
- Robots arms made pick and place operations simple and accurate, bowl feeders took bulk parts and presented them individually as needed.
- Integrated testing provided the final checks to indicate the assembly was correct.
- Turbocharger test facilities (first unit supplied in 2000)
- Equipment design and manufacured for setting up and testing Variable Nozzle (VNT) turbochargers
- VNT turbos are complex devices that need to be set up to perform correctly. Internal vanes and actuators need to be adjusted so the boost functionality of the turbo matches the requirements.
- Two position mechanical tooling, designed and manufactured to suit turbocharger variants.
- Part load/unload and test positions. Inlet, actuator and exhaust connections.
- Flow circuit with sensing and monitoring equipment that is integrated with a PC based control system.
- Data logging of test results against part serial number.
- Utilising a well designed test circuit ensures controlled flows and pressures are used on the turbocharger.
- PC control allows programming of the parameters needed for each variant and full data logging gives a record on the perfomance of the test piece.
- Setting up and testing of the parts gives high confidence and quality for each tested unit.
- Twin robot solution with silicon dispensing and curing (supplied in 2010)
- Dispensed and cured silicon provides a “non-slip” feature to a hosiery garment
- A variety of hosiery garments need to remain in place when worn, this can be aided by having a non-slip material on the inner surface.
- Due to high production volumes an automated solution is ideal and cost effective.
- A machine cell with 2 Kawasaki robots, dispensing equipment and heat lamps assemblies, provided a semi automatic solution.
- The control system allows a recipe to be set for the dispensing parameters for each variant, with up for two different liquids applied.
- By combining manual loading and unloading of the hosiery item over circular mandrels, with automated silicon dispensing and heat lamp curing, this machine cell provides a high throughput solution.
- The flexibility of the robotic handling allows for future proofing for new hosiery products.
- Helium Leak Test Equipment for Automotive Fuel Pipes (supplied in 2007)
- Fixtures for locating and sealing fuel pipe assemblies for helium leak testing
- Automotive fuel pipe asemblies have very tight specifications to ensure fuel leakage doesn’t happen when it is installed in the vehicle.
- Helium leak testing is an accepted test method to check to levels where fuel may leak.
- Combining the test specification with production requirements creates the need for automatic test equipment.
- The test solution included two test fixtures and a central ‘equipment’ module.
- A central module included a mass spectrometer for helium detection and the operator HMI for easy machine control.
- Left and right fixtures provide test part location and sealing with a counterbalanced door closing and sealing the chamber around the test piece.
- Incorporating proven helium leak test technology with designed and manufactured bespoke tooling provides a test facility that ensures leak tight parts are provided to the end user for installation into vehicles.
- Two test fixtures allows production volumes to be met by allowing one fixture to be loaded and unloaded whilst the other is testing a part.
See Page 1, Page 2, Page 3, Page 4, Page 5, Page 6 Here……More machine spotlights coming soon