Automated Assembly of Underfloor Heating Controllers

Aim:
Our customer asked us to come up with a solution that would reduce manufacturing costs, increase capacity and improve efficiency for the production of their underfloor heating controllers.

Challenges:

• Multiple intricate parts to be assembled
• Products were designed to be hand assembled and there was no scope to alter to design for ease of automation
• Products varied in sizes and had different specifications

Solution:
Full assembly line for making underfloor heating controllers.

The finished production line is a ‘turnkey’ solution, that consists of automated stations and semi-automated manned stations. The use of bowl feeders, feeding into a multi station rotary indexing table starts the process which includes 8 stations that each perform a specific task.

In the downstream processes, each of the automated and semi-automated stations perform a specific task, adding value to the assembly of the controller. Following the assembly stages, there is automated laser marking and a test station. The test station performs a visual check using a Keyence vision system and various electronic tests are also performed. Any non-conforming parts are moved offline in the reject station.

Movement through the system is performed with a Bosch Rexroth TS2 pallet conveyor system where empty fixtures are feed back to the start of the process on the two tier conveyor.