Latest from Issues and Ideas

Sarginsons Industries
Sarginsons subframe.
Francesco Scatena | Dreamstime
Factory gate closed with padlock.
Siwakorn Klomwinyarn | Dreamstime
Worker operating barcode scanner.
Ronald Lane | Dreamstime
Atlanta, Georgia, skyline at night.
Simpson Technologies
Waupaca Foundry, Simpson Tech.
Wisconsin Aluminum Foundry
Foundry tooling production at Anderson Global, Muskegon, MI.
Univ. of Tennessee
Univ. of Tennessee metalcasting bootcamp

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.

To read the complete report, subscribe to the Foundry Management & Technology free digital edition.