At the world's leading foundry technology exhibition, numerous visitors stopped at the booth of the Austrian company Fill to experience its cutting-edge innovations: a metalworking robot named "robmill," powered by B&R control technology. A Fill expert readily stated that without B&R automation solutions, robmill could not achieve its excellent cost-performance ratio. The performance leap achieved by Fill GmbH's latest metalworking station, "robmill," has astonished its peers, and the innovative technology it embodies has quickly become the focus of the industry. In fact, both the new metalworking station "robmill" and the newly revamped core-removing unit "swingmaster" are masterpieces resulting from the machine manufacturers in the small town of Gurten's continued dedication to product quality and usability. A change of mindset does not guarantee success. True success comes from Fill's years of experience manufacturing high-level machines. The company's excellent employees have integrated cutting-edge ideas and, through successful collaboration with B&R, designed a new generation of machines. Based on industrial robot technology, the CNC-machined robmill significantly outperforms traditional CNC-based machines, saving considerable costs. “As output declines in many industrial sectors, the demand for flexibility is continuously growing. Robmill’s innovative design and attractive price are what make it shine,” explains Matthias Gamisch, Head of Product Development and Product Management at Fill, with a Master of Management degree. [align=center]Robmill reduces costs while improving performance and accuracy; 6-axis articulated arm industrial robots achieve unprecedented flexibility[/align] 1. 12-Axis Robots To meet the mechanical requirements of stable and manageable cutting processes, experienced engineers used additional servo-stabilized axes to increase controllable machining forces, enhancing the dynamic performance of the standard 6-axis articulated arm industrial robot. This also improved the robot’s path accuracy, feed rate, and productivity. “We knew we had to modify not only the mechanics, but also the control technology, because the robot controller wasn’t simply designed for the machining task; it required a lot of programming,” clarifies Matthias Gamisch. “Furthermore, we also use 12-axis robots, which also require control. The robot controller had already reached its limits on 8 or 9 axes, and the programming requirements were enormous.” Therefore, the robot controller was replaced by a CNC controller further developed by Fill. This controller is used to control the robot and provide the necessary CNC programming functions. At the heart of the controller is the award-winning B&R APC620 industrial PC. “We ultimately chose B&R’s solution because of its high-performance hardware, open software platform in robotics and CNC, which allows us to achieve all the necessary stops and push performance to the highest limits,” said Matthias Gamisch. His colleague, the product manager in charge of the robot mill, added, “Currently, there is no alternative solution that meets our requirements besides B&R. Our existing standard suppliers' solutions do not yet offer the flexibility provided by B&R technology.” 2. Innovative Technology Meets Innovative Needs Furthermore, in terms of technical requirements and cost, the passion for innovation and B&R’s support were also decisive factors for Fill’s experts: “We need an innovative and reliable partner who can respond quickly to fully utilize our innovative capabilities,” emphasized the Fill team leader. “This is even more important because the challenges of meeting the organizational and technological requirements of mechatronics in machine production will continue to grow in the future. Traditional suppliers and partners cannot always meet these challenges, as we have already experienced this.” The core removal unit, the Swingmaster SM315, is another example of the profound impact of this win-win structural collaboration. This newly revamped advanced machine is used for desanding die-cast parts manufactured according to the lost foam principle. “This is a prime example of the importance of mechatronics in machine production,” emphasizes Matthias Gamisch. “All the mechanical gears we used in our previous machines have been replaced with electronic gears to reduce size.” Immediately after the die-casting process, the machine uses two powerful unbalanced shafts to remove and crush the sand from the die-cast parts and remove the sand core, a process achieved using high acceleration exceeding 250 m/s² combined with high-amplitude motion. 3 POWERLINK provides higher precision . “We can achieve special accelerations and payloads up to 315 kg because we use highly dynamic drives and very high control cycles to prevent any deviations from becoming too large and damaging the machine,” states Matthias Gamisch. “The B&R solution, based on a standard controller and integrated drive concept, is even more suitable for our application than configuring a dedicated CNC-based machine controller.” One advantage is high precision. This high precision is achieved by the B&R ACOPOS servo drives and X20 series controllers, and the real-time Ethernet POWERLINK bus ensures the synchronization of the servo drives. “We could also synchronize all axes via CAN, but POWERLINK is an excellent bus that prevents many initial problems because it is insensitive to variations in the application, and of course, it has other advantages. So our decision was obvious.” For Fill’s experts, another advantage is the ease of configuring the controller to be compatible with Profibus devices. Therefore, the company decided to provide a default basic module for the controller, allowing for the installation of a Profibus DP master interface when needed. “This integrates with Swingmaster, which is produced using a Profibus network system, or it can be very easily connected to a robot in operation,” Markus Gadringer enthusiastically stated. “At the same time, we guarantee that SwingMaster installs standardized, highly reliable operating software, and that over 80% of applications require no modification.” The few applications not covered by the intentionally curtailed standardized software are handled by other mainstream controllers, such as Siemens or Allen-Bradley controllers. “Given its advantages, our board's decision to use B&R products on these machines has proven to be the right choice,” Markus Gadringer concluded. “This is not only our conclusion, but also clearly demonstrated by the very positive feedback from users.”