The new TV800 EZCell robot is described by the company as an ideal robot for the food manufacturing and packaging sector. It can perform a variety of pick and place jobs from assembling hamburgers to boxing up confectionery.
Pick and place
Food companies may be looking for a six axis robot to perform difficult pick and place jobs and reach into certain spaces that other machines cannot.
The new six axis robot from Toshiba Machine offers manufacturers a total arm length of 800mm and has a maximum payload of five kilograms. Other technical features include a reach of 892mm, a composite maximum speed of 8.06 metres per second, a maximum cycle time of 0.4-0.5 seconds and repeatability of ±0.02mm.
It is the first six axis robot from Toshiba Machine but others are planned with different specifications.
Ease of use
One of the key distinguishing of the machines, according to the makers, will be their ease of use for people who have little experience with robots. According to a company spokesperson, the design of Toshiba Machine robots and the sales and service support are such that companies can quickly learn how to use them and how to get the most out of them.
Toshiba Machine also claims to offer companies a wide a choice of options. The company claims that with the TV800 on the market, it is also now one of the only major players in the industry to offer a complete range of robot technologies.
“The TV800 completes the set for Toshiba Machine and for us,” said Nigel Smith, managing director of TM Robotics. “We now offer the widest range of SCARA robots on the market, a Cartesian solution that can be configured in literally hundreds of ways and a six axis robot that can be compared with the very best in its class.”
But a spokesperson for Toshiba Machine said the six axis robot has yet to obtain IP65 rating and so cannot currently handle food. This is because the robot has just hit the market.
For the moment, it can therefore only be used in the food industry for secondary packaging applications. But IP65 rating is planned and can be obtained for a company that needs the robot for food manufacturing.
Additional technical details
The new robot is controlled using Toshiba Machine's new TS3100 controller, which is programmed in SCOL , a language similar to BASIC as are all Toshiba Machine industrial robots, and has the option of a teach pendant for easy access outside the robot cell.
The new six axis robot uses an absolute position detection system, with a AC motor at its heart. Axes one to six offer working envelopes of ±170º, -100 - +150º, -127 - +167º, ±190º, ±120º and ±360º respectively. They also feature maximum speeds of 237º/S, 240º/S, 288º/S, 350.5º/S, 484º/S, and 576º/S respectively. The allowable moment of inertia on axis four and five is 0.3kg · m2 and on axis six its 0.5kg · m2.