Festo has introduced a heavy-duty Cartesian gantry for palletizing with lift capacity of up to 440 pounds, Z-axis stroke lengths exceeding eight feet, and speed of up to five feet per second. With free online design tools; off-the-shelf servo drives, motors, and other components; and quick assembly kits, this Festo palletizing solution is designed to shorten project time and reduce engineering and assembly costs.
Robust, high rigidity electric actuators provide the core of this new solution. These actuators include the tough cantilevered Z-axis EHMH rack and pinion actuator for loads up to 440 pounds and the ELCC toothed belt actuator with ball bearing guides for loads up to 220 pounds. For an X-axis solution, the Festo EGC-HD heavy-duty toothed belt or ball screw actuator is suitable for most heavy duty applications.
Cartesian gantries cover the entire workspace with equal accuracy, speed and performance at each point on the X/Y axes. Cartesian palletizers offer a smaller footprint than six-axis robots.
Users can utilize the free online design tool, Handling Guide Online (HGO), to specify a gantry in as little as 20 minutes. Users input application parameters such as distance, speed, torque, weight, and HGO offers a range of solutions to choose from based on performance and cost. HGO ensures interoperable components that are accurately sized for the system.
Other key components in the Festo Cartesian palletizer include the compact CMMT-AS servo drive that now features multiprotocol capabilities—one drive for EtherNet/IP, PROFINET, EtherCAT, and Modbus TCP protocols. For control, a single CPX-E Codesys-based controller can manage multiple synchronized gantries while communicating with third-party controllers.
