If a piece of equipment will pay for itself within 3 years we go for it. With this it was a learning experience for us too, now we are able to offer cobots as a new product based of our own testing and implementation, we have one of these welding too😊
The Robot arm is really cool, but I can't imagine the initial design, production, machinery, would ever get paid off. The man hours alone for design and trouble shooting would be way more than just having a labourer working. This is why you don't see production like this even in China, where they would be making 10s of millions of the same part... its just never worth it versus "unskilled" labour.
@@Stevieboy7 it took me 2 weeks to design and build, it was a learning experience, really we didn't need to fully automate it. But wanted to learn it's been a fantastic learning project for me! And relieved a employee of a boring task 😊🙏
god that's a beautiful solution! The mid-point of automation was amazingly old-school, but being able to integrate that cobot to simplify the whole setup AND do a one piece flow is such a brilliant setup.
Outstanding improvement, Jack. Thanks for taking us through the evolution of this process. Honestly, I was already impressed with what you had done BEFORE you even introduced the cobot!
Wow, thats an amazing and easy to understand Piece of Automation. My Question is, at least what I noticed, the magazine for the PVC Tubes is the main restriction when it comes to human service intervalls by restocking the Tubes. As someone who works for a CNC Machine Manufacturer, we also build a kind of Hopper where round Materials can be loaded in and get dropped out one by one. So depending on the Size of the Hopper, there can easily be stored more than 17 Tubes, so if there would be stored 34 Tubes and dispensed by an Arduino that is connected to a colour or capacitve Sensor it would double the Human service intervall and would let the automation run over night if the hopper is big enough. But the Machine in total is an awesome development and showing the development step by step is awesome.
Thanks for comment, so I'd love to make a hopper for it, but wanted to keep it simple to start with, my time is limited to do it because I have a business to run, currently we are very happy with the result
Jack❤ thanks for making this video to show this improvement evolution! I think I requested it some time ago and I LOVE IT. Really shows the improvement progress and all the SMALL STEPS that are actually required to go to where you are right now! Thanks again!
Love the cowbell! We need more cowbell. Instead of the robot picking up the tube and pushing it through each time before having to reach over and grab the cutoff piece, you should have it set up to drop a full pipe in place, then some grab rollers could push the pipe forward until it breaks a beam at the correct length. Just a thought.
Fantastic integration! So awesome to see these complex tasks being automated. I look forward to a world full of robotic arms and humanoids wherever necessary.
I absolutely love this video. I use a tun of pneumatics and learned to code on Arduino to incorporate automation into my factory as well. A real game changer. Respect for this video. *edit* just saw the cow bell. hahahah, this guy is awesome!
This is one of the many things I really miss about being in business. Looking back I think I got more of a kick out of the R & D, continue improvement, working more "on the business" than actually working "in it" I love manufacturing but sadly with it's demise these days it's getting harder & harder to have a go! I guess I just need to find that one unique thing that people need to have even a chance of getting back to it (I simply HATE working for a boss!) A great video, I get there would have been lots of hard work & failures to get to that point, so well done!! 👍
Thanks for you positive comments! What you say is 100% correct, it's so enjoyable doing the r & d. I could spend a year tuning this cobot cell, it's endless the amount of improvements that could be done. There's millions of products out there that require this type of thing they just need to be found
LOVE this automation. However, if you change the design you remove 75% of the steps and two loose parts... Instead of open sides for the pipe, close those side faces and make three U-shape cuts in each side, then bend in the "tabs" that are created. The shorter PVC would then be contained and vertically supported by the bent tabs, and wouldn't need branded end caps installed to limit side-to-side motion. Saves material also.
Love the automation you have done on this so interesting, next step a +Z laser engraver with a -Z laser engrave, takt time will increase by nearly 8s :)
"Save my people, make their job easier" - and that's how we do business ! I am going to steal your idea for the cow bell. This is the best idea to improve happiness on the work place 😁 The only thing I was wondering about was how you get the end-caps in the machine but I just noticed a piece of conduit on the wall. I am guessing this connects to a vibration sorter, similar to the one being used in the old setup.
Those robots are pretty decent, (Hanbot is a fun twist on the supplier's name) had some time working with the manufacturer of them 4 years back, they've improved a fair bit since then from the look of it. Really awesome setup you got there! Nice job! Little bit concerned about the laser engraver without a proper enclosure. They can definitely seriously blind you, and even damage your eyes from the reflection. I've done a fair bit of work with MOPA / Fibre lasers. They're no joke. Without enclosure they are far into a class 4 laser. I see a lot of videos not treading them with the respect needed, especially from Overseas manufacturers. You only have one set of eyes!
Thanks for you comments! Glad to see you like it 😎😁 did you notice the 3d printed laser shield it stops any laser light getting out, do you think this is not enough?
Bravo sir, Bravo. 👏 I love see someone always trying to figure out a way to do something better in a world of complainers. The bell was a great touch. Would love to know how you sourced parts, the robot, the software, how you learned to program it. Just came across this one video so maybe there are more…good job!
Thanks for the positive comment! The cobot has a touch screen controller which I learned to program it actually doing this machine, it was actually quite easy to do, trial and error with lots of small Improvements, overall it took a couple of weeks to build it.
Need more people like you in British business. So many British businesses are absolutely allergic to R&D and would rather import some randomer from the third world and pay them peanuts to do that job. It's why our productivity in this country is such dogshit. That said, I think the robot arm is overkill. Most companies wouldn't even bother with your first round of automation even!
It's sad because many businesses are not trying to improve processes, we try to improve everything to make the work easier and better quality for the customer.
Great Work, love to see this sort of innovation in British manufacturing. Ignore the naysayers, I think looking at the naysayers most of us want to go back in time to the age of manual lathes. They ignore the fact that finding and employing people to do this type of work is extremely difficult. Have you tried any other brands of Cobot?
Thanks! I do doubt that the naysayers are washing their clothes in a local stream 😂😂😁 Yes I invested around 200k, testing lots of different brands, we now are UK and Europe distributors for this one 😎🇬🇧
@@JackBusseyUK Much improved. The fume extractor is a nice feature. Venting it outside might be even better unless that gets you into regulatory purgatory. PVC (if that's what the caps are) gives off HCl when burned. Thanks for the video.
So awesome to see the improvements over the years. I think the tunes needs to feen themselves without the robot for cutting, would face a lot of motion.
This is mesmerizing! Love all the custom machines. Have you considered heating and then flaring or beading the ends of the tubes? Would eliminate end caps altogether...
@@JackBusseyUK fair enough. I figured you would have, you are always optimizing. But doesn't matter how optimized things are, if they're ugly people don't buy them. Keep up the great work. Thanks for sharing!
I love to watch it and you did really an amazing job there. But I think I would design it in a way, that you put in the pipe, and it would "fall" through all the separat machine parts, which I would aligne in a way that there is no Robot arm needed. The benefiit of the Robot would have been that you could use your "old" machinery which was fedded by hand with an robot automaticaly. For other reasons till now I never found a reason for a robot. (Till now i nowhere use a Robot :-( , all automatisation was able to run run more efficent and cheaper without.) And at least I always was afraid of the high costs and programming skills to use one The BELL is mindblowing!! Perhaps I should buy a robot just for this reason !! 😂
@@MaxMakerChannel The one used in the video has 1000mm reach and 10kg load capacity. This is £23k. Programming is very simple from touch screen controller, drag and drop logic features, I self taught with no manual in a day. No subscription
