Industrial Automation technologies are crucial to marketable products, as they help decrease production costs without sacrificing quality and productivity. In fact, industrial automation increases productivity and output whilst decreasing production costs, resulting in highly efficient production and better-quality products.

Handling materials, components and workpieces is essential in automated production, as it has to be done safely and, above everything else, accurately. Due to these requirements, vacuum automation is critical across practically all industrial categories, especially when it comes to grabbing, clamping, and handling components.

Though it may sound futuristic to non-specialized readers, vacuum automation, driven by vacuum generators, has been widely employed in handling applications for many years. However, technological advancements, such as mobile handling platforms may escort vacuum automation into early retirement. We composed this guide to prevent vacuum automation’s early retirement and keep your manufacturing process running for as long as possible. Here are four tips for using vacuum components in industrial automation:

Use the Right Vacuum Component for the Right Job

It’s important to use the right vacuum components for the right vacuum applications, especially when the pneumatic grabbing deals with minuscule-sized components, like in consumer electronics. You wouldn’t use a hammer to drive a screw or a carrot to drive a nail, so using the right components is critical. Here’s a list of components you need to pay attention to:

Vacuum Cups

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Vacuum cups are often used as gripping components in automated handling applications. They’re powered by a vacuum pump that creates an ultra-high vacuum, exerting a pulling force that helps grip and moves a wide range of different products, such as bottles, bags, brick, sheet metal, glass, and electronics, including the microscopic SMD ones. As a result, they usually come in a variety of different shapes, sizes, and holding capacities.

Vacuum Generators

A standard, electrically powered vacuum generator which uses a piston pump or a rotary blower is driven by an electric motor isn’t really suitable for use on the gripping system, as they’re limited by their massive weight and size, so they can only be positioned near the production robot and not on the robot itself.

This type of application isn’t impossible, but it’s widely impractical. The further away the vacuum system is from the suction cup, the more airflow it requires to grab onto the object. Airflow requirements increase with the number of suction cups per local application such as multiple suction cups and parallel grippers mounted on a single robotic arm.

A greater airflow is still necessary to achieve gripping operations and achieve short evacuation times, resulting in shorter application cycle periods, allowing the machine to be capable of performing its tasks more effectively. To facilitate the maximum possible airflow, an air-powered generator is used instead of a typical and rather massive electrically-powered vacuum generator.

Source: Reid Supply

Air-powered vacuum generators are actually passive components that employ Bernoulli’s equation and Venturi’s effect to create a vacuum. They’re incredibly lightweight and small, usually smaller than the palm of the hand, which allows them to be installed near the suction cups, reducing the amount of maximum airflow necessary for operation.

Air-powered vacuum generators are powered by compressed air delivered via a series of hoses and controlled by vacuum valves. The compressed air can be supplied by the company’s pneumatic system. Another acceptable, but less-ideal approach is installing smaller membrane pumps to work as smaller, electrically driven vacuum generators.

Using Venturi nozzle vacuum generators has tremendous advantages, such as mounting near the suction cups and increased efficiency. Their downside is noise generation, which is why they require the use of silencers.

Maintaining Your Vacuums and Accessories for Consistent Performance

Industrial applications usually require servicing every 12 months. This shouldn’t be neglected, as it can drastically reduce downtimes and repairs, not to mention extend the overall life of your vacuum and its accessories by making sure that everything is in good order.

Most production companies have a scheduled annual overhaul, which would allow you to inspect the entire vacuum system. This includes everything from gate valves, stainless steel conflat flange components, bellows, reducers, tee connectors, gaskets and elastomers, O-rings, feed-throughs, bellows & hoses, vacuum gauges, and everything else included in your vacuum system. Let’s not forget the vacuum chambers, vacuum fittings, and their fasteners.

Regularly Review Your Automation Line

Vacuum handling technology inherently has low energy efficiency, despite its prominence across various industries. This primarily happens because we need to convert electricity into compressed air and then compressed air into a vacuum. In addition, the pneumatic system’s infrastructure, the structure of the workpiece, suction cups, hosing, and the process parameters all affect the energy consumption of a vacuum gripper.

However, that doesn’t mean that you should neglect the overall efficiency of your automation line, especially in terms of vacuum gripping and handling. Regularly review your automation line looking for areas in which vacuum generation for gripping and handling can be improved.

Stay On Top of the Latest Trends in Vacuum Components

Industrial applications and production processes are constantly evolving, and the best solution today may not be the best solution tomorrow. Admittedly, vacuum handling is very prominent across different industries, but it’s only usable as long as the automation components remain stationary.

Mobile automation components, such as autonomous warehouse robots, cannot carry a compressed airline. They can only rely on compressed air supplied by a small membrane pump, which still needs electricity to run. This makes such applications very ineffective.

Luckily, there are some systems in development that can generate vacuum without the supply of compressed air. The core concept introduced a “push-push” actuation, which generates the vacuum necessary to handle airtight, rigid workpieces. However, industrial applications sometimes rely on those factors during the handling process.

Summary

If you want to learn more about vacuum flanges, vacuum components in automation, and vacuum technology, visit Reid Supply — a supplier of a comprehensive line of metalworking and engineering components. We keep a wide assortment of components found in pneumatic systems, such as ISO weld fittings, centering rings, ISO flanges, adapters, and ball valves. If we don’t have a part or component you need, we know where to source one that matches your specifications.