Hi,
We want to use PM5 for a new project but I want to be sure that it could work at an easy way. There are more than 300 box sizes and the idea is that the customer should only change size of the box, weight of the box and pallet pattern when they want to run this box size. (simple operation for the operator)
We make a dummy project where all the different formats are ready so that the smartgripper could take the smalest box.
We activate all the formats in the pallet pattern operation set so that pickmaster decide how to palletize.
I have try this and I have seen some problems that could maybe be solved by setting some parameters or change some Rapid code!
This is what happened, when changing the size of boxes we could have for some formats that the boxes are outside the gripper size, the zone selection of the formats work correctly but the pallet operation set is not correct.
Pickmaster try to take all the boxes even if the boxes are outside the griper zone. Is this normal? Can we avoid this without deselcting the format in the pallet pattern operation set(for example Format 10 boxes but the gripper can only handel 5 boxes)
The format 10 boxes give us some problem whit the automatic generation of operations because Pickmaster take alway the biggest active format. In our case it could for example take format 10 boxes but the gripper can handel only 5 boxes at the time, this will mean that we will miss 5 boxes on the pallet. Is there any possiblity to avoid this?
An other problem of the biggest format is that the robot is doing then single pick and x place. Is there any possibility to tell pickmaster that he should only use a format to do single pick, single place?
BR,
Fabrice
Hello Fabrice,
The PickMaster 5 PC application is a configuration tool
that greatly simplifies the programming of a palletising application.
It is not designed to be used by an operator (which does not mean
that an operator will not be able to use it). The operator normally uses the runtime
interface available through the flexpendant or via rapid or via I/O signals.
In the PC configuration, the zone selection defines which tool zone that shall be activated
when an item in the format is handled (i.e. picked, held or dropped). When picking a format on an infeeder, all items are expected to be picked even if an item not is covered by the selected zone. The automatic zone selection will select those zones that makes the best fit. However, a 3 box format will not become a 2 box format if all items cannot be covered by tool zones. The zone selection must be verified by the programmer to make sure that all items can be picked/placed correctly.
The layout operations must be manually edited in order to avoid an undesired multidrop.
Item size tuning can be used through the operators interface to modify the size of boxes. Right now only the height of the box can be modified. Length/width tuning is something we want to put in the product but in a first step targeting smaller changes in size, not a size change that will make the zone selection of formats unusable.
You need to configure all products that have different XY sizes
and make sure that the defined formats can be picked by the robot tool. If the tool
cannot grip 10 products, you should remove this format. If an operation set is using
the removed format you need to update that one to and only select those formats
that the tool can handle. A warning will be marked on affected operation sets.
Best regards,
Anders