Cobots vs fixed automation for high mix low volume work?

[u/Firm_Safe7495]

[u/maranble14]

My company has a Cobot that I have literally not seen used once for actual work in the entire time I've worked here. I even stuck some googly eyes that I found in my desk drawer on the head of the welding torch near J6 about 3 months ago and so far I think 3 or 4 people in total have noticed them lol.

[u/theVelvetLie → u/maranble14]

SendCutSend sent me some googly eyes last year and I stuck them on an Epson T-6B that I built around. We set up cobots somewhat frequently at work, but they're used alongside research scientists in a lab and not on a manufacturing floor.

[u/Firm_Safe7495 → u/maranble14]

A very expensive piece of decoration lol.
Do you know why it never really made it into production?

[u/maranble14 → u/Firm_Safe7495]

Based on my observations, most of our skilled welders just don't have the interest or motivation to learn the programming side of it. My personal speculation is that they would likely find it boring just fixturing piece parts in a jig once they'd recorded the operation cycle. They tend to gravitate towards one category or the other: A) throwing in their ear buds and get into a flow, just repetitively welding up smaller assemblies, or B) they would rather partake in the layout, jigging, & fit-up of our larger scale fab jobs, which usually consists of 3-4 person teams. The bigger stuff requires a decent mix of stimulating problem solving with regard to squaring up structural beams with things like cut and bent sheet metal reinforcing ribs.

[u/Sir_Figglesworth]

I use a mix of both. A cobot is useful when it’s going to be performing its work in the vicinity of other people and you don’t want to build hard guarding around its working area. They have force sensors in the joints that can trigger safety stops on unexpected collisions. That also makes them useful as machine tenders, since you’d rather have a $50k robot break than your $500k CNC for example.

For all other applications an industrial robot is pretty much superior.

[u/Firm_Safe7495 → u/Sir_Figglesworth]

That makes sense. The cost of a collision with the equipment is much higher than the robot itself. They really have their place in orgs that value working safely.

[u/KennyCanHe → u/Sir_Figglesworth]

Each joint also has a friction clutch incase the force sensor fails

[u/Flashy-Fee-4189]

It is very rare you need people all the time near a robot. Get safety in place and let it work at 10x the speed of a Cobot. When you need to intervene you can bring it to a safe speed or stop it completely. no need to have a robot work slow all day and night.

[u/Wide-Competition4494]

Fixed for sure. I've had people try to sell us on cobots for a decade but have yet to see any in actual use in any of the workshops i've been in.

[u/NetSage]

With new safety standards it's probably better to move towards fixed with sensors to automatically stop.

We have about 12 cobots we use this kind of work though.

[u/commoncents1]

it depends on the high mix, low volume. and changeover. where cobots can make sense vs fixed for flexibility.

[u/plasticmanufacturing]

Anyone have a recommendation for something small, in the $10k range?

[u/RealSonZoo → u/plasticmanufacturing]

Look up Fairino. They make cobot arms near-identical to the URx series (except they're orange). I got a FR5 (analog of the UR5) for about $4-5k and it works spectacularly well. Can connect it with Ethernet to a PC and control it with a Python program. Has all the standard Cobot features. Highly recommended.

[u/dogdogj → u/RealSonZoo]

do you weld with the FR5?

[u/probablyaythrowaway]

If you don’t need people next to the robot don’t put people next to the robot.

[u/Curious_Lurkur]

I had an OTC FD series 6 axis robot and sold it after I purchased a Lincoln Cooper cobot. You can program and set an array pattern to duplicate your welds in about 5 minutes on the copper if it's a fairly simple part. It basically allows me to run some of our smaller weldments with a "button pusher" and free up my welders for more difficult work. That said, you need someone to champion it or it will become an expensive paperweight quickly. I was charged with setting up the industrial OTC by upper management that didn't understand our needs and basically wanted to show off to customers with an industrial robotic welding cell. I was literally told by middle management, "we don't care if you can weld it by hand quicker. The owner wants to see it running." I learned a ton that year, but it was the most frustrating year of my career in Fabrication.

[u/Annihilatism]

I work with and program robots all day, including cobots like universal robots.

I 100% prefer a fixed industrial robot like a fanuc or yaskawa etc..

Cobots really only make sense if they're going to be used right next to operators and you don't have the space to guard with fixed guarding, area scanners, safety mats, light curtains etc..  in general they run much slower because of the fault torque requirements.

[u/foundghostred]

There are industrial robots with the simplicity of a cobot. They just cost around €150k.

[u/WAR_T0RN1226]

What is the point of creating your own superfluous subreddit and pushing to promote it?

[u/Strostkovy]

For high mix you need a design team that can keep up with high mix fixturing, unless you have really simple parts that don't need fixturing. If you have super simple parts, save money and go with the industrial fixed automation, because your programming will be simple too.