The Customer:

Gerhard Eckerle GmbH is a globally active company. Amongst others the company is specialized in assembling electromechanical components. Another core competence is the production of complex plastic parts, some of which are made in the company's plant in Ottersweier.

The Task:

Producing a complex two-component part in one system

The Problem:

Designing a system for automated insert moulding that would ensure high system availability and minimize the risk of process errors.

The Solution:

The completely automated production cell integrates two linear robots and a punching/bending machine in addition to a 2-component injection moulding machine. The thin contact prongs are punched, bent and positioned in the mould. Quality assurance must be rigorous, including checking the correct positioning of the inserts in the mould cavities.

The Outcome:

The system supplied to produce 2-component brush holders incorporated a 2C injection moulding machine running a 4-cavity mould mounted on a turntable. The first process step is to position the very small contact elements in the mould cavities. The contact elements are punched from a coil that unwinds continuously through a punch unit. The contact elements are punched, bent, picked up by a robot and placed in a centring unit. Another linear robot picks up the contacts and positions them in the cavities in the fixed mould half. At the same time, the attachment on the reverse of the gripper picks the finished components from the moving mould half. The gripper has been designed to operate within the minimum mould opening stroke. Despite its dual functionality, the gripper head can enter and exit the mould within very tight opening tolerances. The solution we shipped included the complete automation for the cell. All the robot systems are designed to work optimally together. All process steps, from coil feed to dropping the finished components, are completely automated.