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Cleaning/Finishing: Software Advances Robotic Casting Finishing

Feb. 19, 2006
Automated solutions to earlier problems

Casting variation and the inability to program robots easily offline have prevented many foundries from automating, but there are now user-friendly solutions to these problems.

Dealing with Casting Variation — As castings increase in size, so does the dimensional variation among castings. The requirement to remove a gate or riser to a dimension closer than that variation has made using robotics very difficult.

Offline Programming with a Digitizer — Another milestone is the development of robot path generation using a digitizer arm. This does not require a solid model, nor does it require the actual robot cell to program a new casting. It’s a development that helps foundries to justify automated casting finishing because the robot cell can remain in production, cleaning another previously programmed casting, while a new casting is programmed at the programmer’s workbench.

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