Large Axes, Small Springs

Spring fitting system for the automotive industry: eight processing stations, 24 axes over six square metres

At a Glance

• A high cycle speed with placement frequency of 600 springs, while also meeting the high service life requirement of 30 million cycles.
• Low space requirement for eight parallel processing stations with 24 axes over six square metres.
• Pre-assembled system components for easy installation and faster commissioning.

Challenge

MAFU Automation is a specialist in spring disentangling and feeding. For a highly sophisticated spring fitting system within motor vehicle assistance systems, some 600 springs per minute needed to be positioned in the boreholes of workpiece holders while ensuring extremely high availability. The high performance requirements as well as the small amount of space available presented further challenges.

Solution

The backbone of the system is a powerful, 2.8 metre-long customer-specific linear motor axis, which was produced specifically for this application. It requires just one second to move its carriage to each user-programmable position. With a cycle time of just 4.5 seconds, the workpiece holders are distributed over eight parallel processing stations. The HN200 linear motor axes used here with attached ST140 rotating unit facilitate the requisite placement frequency of 600 springs per minute. Alongside the cycle speed, the high service life requirement of 30 million cycles was the key factor. To simplify installation, all assemblies (including the power supply and lubrication system) were delivered fully pre-assembled as system components.