Needle Automation
JM Automation has built many machines related to processing needles fabricated from .003″ or less stainless steel. Our background in the stamping industry makes us perfectly suited for projects such as these that involve intricate tool and die work.
Glass Barrel Assembly (For Single Use Needle)
This machine was designed to automatically construct the first subassembly of a single use needle assembly. Operators load the glass barrel, tip and flange into pallets with RFID tracking. At the first two robot cells, Adept SCARA robots pick the tip and flange out of the pallet, apply UV cured adhesive, and insert the pieces into the barrel. At the final robot cell, the adhesive is final cured, and the assembly is leak tested. Vision inspection systems are present at every cell to verify part quality at each step of the process.
Utility Knife Blade Automation
Blades are fed into the machine as they exit the grinder and pulled into the breaker stations. Blades are broken off one at a time and collected in a stack until the desired count is reached. Each breaker is driven by a single Yaskawa servo motor with a dual output gearbox. The guarding is designed such that an operator can stop one half of the machine to perform maintenance or feed new material into a breaker without stopping the other side. An Epson C4L 6-axis robot picks the stack of blades and places them into the case front on the conveyor belt. The blades are inspected to verify the proper count is in the case and there is no damage on the sharpened edge. The Epson robot also places the case back on top after picking it from another conveyor. A separate tamping station snaps the case back into the front.
Tabletop Machines
JM Automation designs and builds equipment of all sizes, varying from single operator tabletop equipment to multi robot production cells. We have built a wide array of tabletop machines for customers of all sizes for prototyping and/or small-scale production.
Disc cutter for medical application.
UV Adhesive dispensing and curing station for Cannula needles.
Disc cutter and thermal bonding machine for medical application.
Shrink tube cutter and trimmer for stainless steel tubing used on surgical robots.
Induction brazing machine for surgical robot components.
Shaker to separate medical parts from deburring substrate.
Laser Trimming Automation
This machine was built to trim webbing material from injection molded parts. The Epson 6-axis robot picks the part out of an operator loaded fixture and presents it to a Keyence XG-X vision system and then to the laser for trimming. The vision system scans the parts and automatically updates the laser’s cut path to compensate for any variability in size or position of the parts.
Mechanical Control Cable
Mechanical control cable manufacturing is one of the many industries that JMAS has extensive experience in. This machine was built to replace an aging piece of equipment for our customer. We were also able to improve product quality and reduce manufacturing costs (labor, scrap, maintenance, etc.) when compared to the equipment this system replaced. The entire machine was designed, assembled, wired, and programmed in house. There are three major stations: the winder, flatwrap, and caterpuller. Each station is driven by its own Yaskawa servo motor and all three are electronically cammed to ensure perfect synchronization. This was critical to our success on this project as any deviation in output between the stations would result in out of spec product.
Ball Stud Inspection
A local machine shop needed a system to complete 100% inspection of surface defects and critical dimensions of parts prior to shipping to their customer. A Fanuc LR Mate robot was used to pick parts from the flexible feeder and advance them through the various Keyence vision-based inspection stations. Yaskawa direct drive rotary servo motors were used where parts needed to be spun in front of the camera. One of the requirements was that this machine needed to run several different parts of similar shape and size. To accomplish this a flex feeder and custom designed gripper jaws capable of holding both parts were used. All other changeover parts were doweled or fixtured in place to enable properly trained operators to switch the machine over in minutes and start running immediately without making adjustments.
Air Filter Frame Automation
JM Automation has built many machines for the assembly of cardboard air filter frames. We created automated or semi-automated solutions to cover the entire process, from the cutting and notching of the frames, to folding and gluing for final assembly. With the high-quality solutions we developed, our customer was able to increase production and expand the business.
