Frit Placement, Filling and Weighing

The Challenge

The challenge was to provide a system to remove the need for low-speed manual processes to assemble at a rate of 35 parts/min, along with thoroughly checking all parts/assemblies for dispensed liquid weight and part presence and position of frits.

• Automatically assemble, mark, fill, weigh, and off-load devices.
• Required to handle two sizes of devices/assemblies.
• No shedding of material (frits are fibrous).
• Full checking and inspection of parts.
• Accurately weighing/dispensing to +/-20mg.
• Fitting within the tight constraints of a cleanroom environment.

The Solution

Designed around a 6-station indexer, the first station fed columns from a vibratory bowl, where they were picked and placed into a tooled nest on the machine dial plate. At station 2, the columns were laser marked with a configurable code before entering station 3, where the frits were fed from a vibratory bowl along a vibratory track and then picked and placed into the columns.   Station 4 lowered the devices onto a weigh cell to take the net weight of the column and frit assembly. Station 5 dispensed an accurate dose of slurry before the final station lowered the devices onto a second weigh cell, and the weight obtained from station 3 was deducted to give a dispensed weight of the slurry.

If the part is verified as having only one frit placed and the slurry dose is correct, it is picked and placed from the dial plate into an unloading area. Once the tray was completed, the operator removed the full tray and replaced it with another empty tray without having to stop the machine.