In recent years, the 3C industry (i.e., Computer, Communication, and Consumer Electronics) has experienced rapid development, becoming a bright spot amidst the overall unfavorable situation in the manufacturing sector. However, as a typical labor-intensive industry, the 3C industry, while achieving rapid growth, also faces challenges such as "difficulty in recruiting workers" and "high employee turnover." This has prompted major 3C product manufacturers to accelerate the introduction of automated equipment such as industrial robots to address issues such as continuously rising labor costs and difficulty in recruiting workers, which constrain industrial development and drive the transformation of the 3C industry from a labor-intensive to a technology-intensive industry.
A client, a globally renowned 3C product manufacturer, whose personal computers, laptops, and other products hold a significant market share globally, recently decided to build 10 automated screw fastening production lines to replace manual and XY-Table type automated screw fastening machines in order to reduce production costs, improve efficiency, and accelerate automation. Based on the client's needs, Delta Electronics provided an automated screw fastening production line solution centered on the SCARA industrial robot DRS60L series, meeting the client's requirement to enhance the automation level of the screw fastening process.
Delta's automated screw fastening production line solution consists of multiple automated screw fastening workstations. Each workstation integrates Delta's DRS60L series SCARA industrial robots, ASDA-MS series robot control and drive systems, machine vision systems, handheld teach pendants, PLCs, and other industrial automation products. Because the solution utilizes all Delta products, all products and interface devices on the production line can be quickly integrated. The Delta DRS60L series SCARA industrial robots feature excellent speed (standard cycle time of 0.39 seconds), repeatability (± 0.015mm ), and linearity, making them particularly suitable for the electronics manufacturing industry, including the 3C industry. Furthermore, this series supports various operating methods, allowing customers to quickly get started. In addition, users can monitor the screw fastening operation status of the workstation in real time through the Delta handheld teach pendant.
The system architecture of Delta's automatic screw fastening workstation is as follows:
By adopting Delta's solutions, customers gain the following benefits:
● When used with an automatic screw feeding and fastening unit, it can meet the screw fastening needs within the M1.2-M4 range .
● The control system adopts a human-machine interaction approach, allowing customers to choose from various locking techniques and locking paths.
●The system is designed with early warning shutdown and multiple processing functions to address issues or malfunctions during the fastening process, such as floating locks, stripped threads, abnormal screw feeding, and video NG.
● It can replace the traditional XY-Table type automatic screw fastening machine, which is convenient and quick to use, allows for fast line changes, and has strong versatility and applicability.
● Locked data can be uploaded to the customer's server in real time, enabling customers to monitor and analyze equipment operating status promptly.
● The yield rate of locked products has been improved to over 97.3% .
The successful implementation of this project reduced labor costs for the customer, improved product quality consistency, and enhanced the automation level of the entire workshop. It also broke away from the traditional screw-fastening machine model in the 3C industry, expanded the application areas of Delta's industrial robots, and perfectly showcased the diversity, practicality, and integration of Delta's industrial control products.
