A Random Walk Through Costco with Moog Animatics

LCD and Plasma Displays: SmartMotor™ products are used

in coating process for Backlight film

SmartMotors are used in metalizing and coating process of glass layers.

Electronics

Electronics

Heat shrink wrapping on CD/DVD packages

Tubes are fed down over packaging, plastic is dispensed and air is blown through before being shrunk to form fit the container

Clothing

Fabric Sewing : Inseams on pants & Sleeves on shirts

SmartMotors are used in various textile industries. One example is the high speed stitching of inseams on pants.

Through the use of feedback, thread tension can be controlled.

Looper motors and material feed motors utilize electronic gearing off of main sewing head motor

Appliances (Filters)

Traverse & Take-up Winding Also used for making swimming pool

filters Cotton based water filtration systems

Guitars

Guitar String Manufacturing Same process / SmartMotor application

as catheter manufacturing (Traverse & Take-up Winding)

Allowed foot pedal controls without need for any PC or PLC

Precise electronic gearing with phase offsets increased throughput and quality

2 Rotary index tables working in unison. Main table, table in cam mode to spot

weld clamps on sink With I/O and control capabilities, dwell

can be defined by end of process state (welding completion) to improve overall production cycle times

Kitchen Products

Batteries- battery cell plates inserted, UV weld placed around top, butane deburring machine (plastic reflow)

Automotive

5 Gallon Buckets

5 gallon bucket label application Bucket spins as barcode and label is

applied Motors feed label material and rotate

bucket. Motion added to PLC without cost of

motion control card

Bicycles

Front and rear fork destructive testing via vibration

Motor cycles through constant force over extended position swings to point of failure.

Data logged via load cell directly into motor for strength testing

Bypassed need for PLC or data acquisition cards.

Outdoor Products

Automated assembly machines for manufacturing of gas regulator valves and fittings and hot water heater overpressure valves

Large axis count mounted on rotating assembly table allowed power and communications via slip rings.

No drive and control cables to run back to control panels.

Each motor handled local tasks and I/O

Outdoor Products Fiberglass rods cut to length from

continuous-feed extrusion. (Cutting process)

Additionally, With the ability to program up to 1000 subroutines and 32K of extra data storage, the system can be programmed for hundreds of back stop positions and sequences.

No external PLC or PC would be required. A simple HMI can be utilized for interfacing

Outdoor Products Surfboards!

Outdoor Products

Kayaks / Canoes Cutout of plug for top of kayak with a

router Butane deburring process (ABS plastic)

Beverages Kuka robot, with 4 axis SmartMotor

end-effector, both clamps onto and shifts cases for proper orientation on conveyor

Integrated controls allowed for light weight simple design at end effecter with only power and communications connections.

Full error checking and diagnostics all within SmartMotor subroutine control

Grocery

Ziploc-style bags (for numerous products), thin film laminate feed, folded over, heat sealed with alignment check

Labels applied to registration marks Automatic Closed loop edge guide of

film to insure alignment of zip lock mating surfaces controlled entirely by SmartMotor program

Grocery Pre-stacking of crackers and heat

sealing of plastic in box. Utilizing subroutines and variable

counter, both Absolute and Relative Position Mode moves allow for start of stack and incremental stack shifts while maintaining parts counts.

Having localized I/O within the Integrated Controls, the entire handling of parts can be dealt with by the stacker motor itself.

True distributed control at a fraction of the cost and footprint.

Grocery

Cut to length and fill of film for trash bags, palletizing of product array

Take-up winding application SmartMotor driven toggle press for

closing jaws in cut & seal process

Grocery

“Mystery eggs” - inseminating, pre-process

Gantry moves over egg array(?) Customer required remote serial control

in simplistic language for both manual over ride and automatic control

Grocery

Combination of Stack lifter and rotary carousel rotates multiple stackers to tube of plastic for packaging.

Stacker Motors rotated with table Only power needed to be fed to

carousel.

x 5

Eyeglasses & Contacts

Lens cutting and grinding Mold & packaging process for contact

lenses Several motors deployed for in-line

assembly, transfer, inspection, and packaging of product

Allowed multi axis control over simple RS232 communications back to PLC

No large control cabinet required due to integrated controls

Cotton Industry

Testing of softness of cotton in compression

Done for Federal agricultural agency testing on an extremely large scale

30+ motors used through various stages of product transfer, compression, tension and density testing

Simplistic approach saving hundreds on cabling and panel space

Quilting operations – Custom patterns and edge quilting

Full CNC At-home quilting machines now available for end users allowing custom record and playback quilt patterns

Bedding

Bedding

Quilted stitching of edges and main seams

Glue application of rows of pocketed inner springs.

Automated feed of each additional rows of mattress inner springs

Motor traveled with glue dispense head controlling both motion and glue pump and valves

Relieved main PLC of motion tasks allowing faster throughput

Bathroom Articles

Toothbrush handles (robotic extraction out of the mold)

SmartMotor used in robotic arms for extraction of handles

Also various other mold injection formed plastic pieces

Bathroom Articles

Diapers and other hygiene products On-the-fly insertion of absorbent

material Application of adhesive strips Motors on rotary Ferris wheel type

mechanical setup run in CAM mode Only integrated solution with CAM

mode available!

Detergent

Numerous capping and filling operations

Automated rail adjustment for rapid change over

Using size 34 frame motors to lift entire bed of machine for height of dry powder detergent.

Cable runs from control cabinet exceeded 80 feet. Conventional drives would have used too many sub panels and cable ways

Breathmints

Tic-Tacs® and Listermint® Breathmints Plastic case inserting and labeling Take-up of film, cutting, stacking, and

placement in cases. Entire process run by SmartMotors

alone

Vitamins/ Pharmaceutical

Bottle cappers and bottle filling for various small plastic bottles including:

Vitamins Over-the-counter drugs Automated prescription fillers

Tires & Wheel Rims

Tires spun and tread surface is finished if out-of-round

Replaced Delta Tau 6-axis System at a cost savings of over $8K on next generation machines.

CNC cutting of metal wheel rims deployed later to create dedicated CNC rim machine for one-off custom designs

Door and Cabinet Manufacturing Horizontal boring drill units are positioned

in matched patterns to part numbers via HMI and SmartMotor array data look-up.

Set rotating Motor as master and have the linear axis electronically gear off of it to provide high speed drill and taps and screw feed control with limited torque.

Adding proper torque detection, the unit can detect when a drill or tap has worn or become dull. As a nut/screw runner, it can pick up on cross thread, broken or stripped thread, missing part or jammed part

MOOG ANIMATICS

Everywhere!