Pneumatic and hydraulic grippers are amongst the preferred gripper sorts (together with servo-electric). For those who’re questioning whether or not pneumatic or hydraulic grippers are prone to be the most effective match on your utility, this text is for you as we evaluate and distinction the design, efficiency and usefulness of hydraulic and pneumatic grippers.
Spoiler: As showdowns go, this one is simple to name. We’ll quickly uncover that for collaborative robotic functions, there isn’t any severe competitors between the 2: pneumatic grippers are the best alternative on your cobot-powered functions.
Let’s discover out why…
What’s a hydraulic gripper?
Hydraulic grippers are heavy-duty grippers that apply the kind of forces required to deal with heavy (often >50kg, 110.23 lb) gadgets.
How does a hydraulic gripper work?
Hydraulic grippers use pressurized fluids to maneuver a piston. When the piston strikes, it transfers this drive to the claw, opening and shutting it.
What’s a pneumatic gripper? How does a pneumatic gripper work?
Pneumatic grippers use strain from a compressed air provide system to produce the facility required to maneuver an internal piston, thereby opening and shutting the pneumatic gripper fingers (or ‘jaws’). Pneumatic gripper mechanisms comprise no motors or gears, which makes it straightforward to translate the facility of a piston/cylinder system right into a gripping drive.
For the reason that majority of producing amenities have already got entry to compressed air, deploying pneumatic grippers is simple and cost-effective. One of many fundamental advantages of pneumatic grippers is that they supply a excessive quantity of gripping drive in a small, gentle and low-cost bundle. For manufacturing amenities the place area is at a premium, pneumatic grippers are a cost-effective and ergonomic alternative. They’re additionally fairly straightforward to take care of –upon getting your pneumatic gripper working, it might present thousands and thousands of cycles with out requiring upkeep.
What’s the distinction between pneumatic and hydraulic grippers?
One of many main the reason why hydraulic grippers are not often, if ever, utilized in collaborative automation is as a result of the standard payloads do not match. For causes of security, ease of deployment, value, mobility and footprint, cobots are designed for lower-than-hydraulic payloads of as much as round 16kg (35.3 lbs). Subsequently, for nearly each conceivable cobot-powered utility, utilizing a hydraulic gripper could be costly overkill.
If you could raise weights of 500kg (1102.31lb), for instance, an ordinary industrial robotic with a hydraulic gripper and fencing may be the only option. However for Common Robots prospects, pneumatics supply completely sufficient power density for functions resembling meeting, materials dealing with and machine tending.
Moreover, since hydraulic grippers comprise pistons and oiled components, they’re much higher-maintenance than their servo-electric and pneumatic counterparts. Hydraulic gripper upkeep can be advanced and might require expert technicians to take care of the oil, pump and reservoir. This highlights one other necessary purpose why pneumatic grippers are typically most popular over hydraulic grippers for collaborative functions: cobots are designed for simple operation by non-expert end-users, so including a fancy hydraulic gripping system to a cobot will undermine the general system’s ease of use.
Since they depend on air fairly than fluids, pneumatic robotic grippers could be deployed in clear room environments. By comparability, hydraulic robotic grippers are too messy –particularly after they fail and leak hydraulic fluid into your work cell.
Moreover, by way of value, hydraulic grippers are way more costly than their pneumatic counterparts. In case you are interested in cobots partly due to their low value in comparison with conventional automation, then it would not make numerous sense to deploy a hydraulic gripper that might simply value greater than the cobot itself.
Lastly, if accuracy is necessary to your collaborative utility, then take into account that pneumatic gripping methods present larger accuracy than their hydraulic counterparts. Your gripper’s URCap software program and simple integration with Common Robots cobot vary ensures a relentless stream of knowledge that can be utilized to tweak your functions and processes, scale back downtime and enhance productiveness.
URCaps are particular software program packages designed to make sure clean programming and management of UR licensed end-effectors and parts. UR+ is a worldwide ecosystem of parts, software program, and utility kits which have been validated and authorized to be mechanically, electrically and digitally suitable with cobots from Common Robots. UR+ hosts a wide array of pneumatic grippers from you to select from.
Pneumatic grippers simply win this robotic gripper showdown, however they’ve their very own limitations. For instance, as a result of they depend on pressurized air stream, drive management will not be as exact as that supplied by electrical grippers. Offering a fragile grip may also be a problem for pneumatic methods because it’s arduous to manage the gripper at very low pressures. If an exterior air provide is required, this could add further value to your deployment. And whereas pneumatic grippers are appropriate for a lot of clear room functions, in the event that they fail, they’ll contaminate the air contained in the work cell. For these causes, some producers choose to make use of electrical grippers for his or her materials dealing with wants.
UR+ is a one-stop-shop for pneumatic robotic grippers
Let’s check out a few of pneumatic robotic gripper choices accessible by way of UR+
The GRIPKIT-P Sequence from Weiss Robotics is a pneumatic gripper and dealing with system for Common Robots. The GRIPKIT-P system accommodates every thing finish customers must arrange materials dealing with, meeting and machine tending duties inside minutes. For those who want excessive dynamics and gripping drive with compact dimensions, GRIPKIT-P pneumatic grippers (in parallel or centric design) are very best.
