Comment Re:3-D measuring machine head. (Score 1) 1144
We were getting a tour of a facility that makes automotive parts for school. We went into their Q/A and measuring lab, which had about the same set up. Big robotic arm, a Staubli I believe (think Swiss precision car assembling arm at about $20-50 grand just for the tiny one).
The entire room is sterile, white tile thing you'd imagine a lab would be. In the middle the arm is measuring while we walk in, and there's a guy over by the side monitoring it on his console.
Guy looks up to greet us as we walk in. Arm does something weird, they had new software that day. Ruby-tipped probe goes downward onto a cast steel part. Crash, and kind of a sparkly sound as bits and pieces of the probe fall around the room. Our task that day turned out to be to find the $3500 piece of ruby that makes the tip of the probe, all of us hands and knees going across the room to find it (the tip itself is about the size of a grain of rice).
Split the gears the elbow motor from the force of the impact, apparently. Smoke was coming out of the controller before they killed the arm with the big red button, since it was still trying to power the fused gearbox.
All in all cost that company at least ten grand to fix a robot because their expert looked up and waved while someone walked in.
I'll never forget the look on their faces.
The entire room is sterile, white tile thing you'd imagine a lab would be. In the middle the arm is measuring while we walk in, and there's a guy over by the side monitoring it on his console.
Guy looks up to greet us as we walk in. Arm does something weird, they had new software that day. Ruby-tipped probe goes downward onto a cast steel part. Crash, and kind of a sparkly sound as bits and pieces of the probe fall around the room. Our task that day turned out to be to find the $3500 piece of ruby that makes the tip of the probe, all of us hands and knees going across the room to find it (the tip itself is about the size of a grain of rice).
Split the gears the elbow motor from the force of the impact, apparently. Smoke was coming out of the controller before they killed the arm with the big red button, since it was still trying to power the fused gearbox.
All in all cost that company at least ten grand to fix a robot because their expert looked up and waved while someone walked in.
I'll never forget the look on their faces.
