Arburg's product portfolio includes Allrounder injection molding machines and the Freeformer for industrial additive manufacturing. "With our AM Factory, we are demonstrating how an automated and IT-networked freeformer can individualize series products," explains Heinz Gaub, Managing Director Technology at Arburg. "In our practical example, a freeformer refines vacuum gripper base plates made of aluminum "on demand" with functional contours made of soft plastic." A six-axis robot handles the entire process, including functional testing of the newly created gripper. With the help of the ATCM Scada system, each gripper can be 100% traced back to its origin.

Fully automated industrial additive manufacturing

The machine manufacturer's approach is to use industrial additive manufacturing (AM) to customize series parts in a fully automated and traceable manner, thereby creating added value. This also includes the integration of additional process steps. For example, the turnkey system produces individual gripper plates for chess pieces.

At the terminal, the visitor specifies which chess piece of the chess game set up in the production cell is to be moved. The freeformer applies the functional TPE contour to the gripper plate to match the respective chess piece: the right gripper geometry has to be added for the individual pieces so that the piece can be "gripped" and moved using a vacuum. The six-axis robot removes a base plate from the shaft magazine and feeds it to the "laser marking" station. There it is marked with a DM code and can therefore be clearly traced.

The insert is now placed on a workpiece carrier. The robot then changes its gripper to pick up the workpiece carrier and feed it to the next station. There, the base plate is plasma treated and scanned before being placed in the build chamber in order to transfer the 3D print job to the Freeformer 300-3X. The six-axis robot and Freeformer communicate via a Euromap 67 interface to open and close the build chamber door for loading and unloading the components.

The freeformer produces the desired functional contour from the elastic plastic TPU in around three to four minutes according to the stored order. The workpiece carrier is then removed and the component is scanned again. This provides the robot with the information as to which chess piece it should use to functionally test the gripper plate.

Function test inline

The robot places the workpiece carrier down and switches back to the gripper for handling the base plate. It then performs a tactile function test on the customized component while it is still in the production cell. For this purpose, the desired game piece is sucked in and placed on the chessboard. This is only possible if the additively applied contour matches the piece exactly. The chess pieces themselves were manufactured in advance from ABS using a Freeformer 200-3X.

Scada system records process and quality data

The Scada system Turnkey Control Module (ATCM) is available for new turnkey systems from Arburg and has a system-specific interface. An Allrounder with OPC UA interface is required for implementation and data transfer. Each component is automatically assigned its own number (ID) in the ATCM. The main task of the Scada system is to record and merge part-specific process parameters and test results. The individual data records are made available to an evaluating system at defined intervals via OPC UA. In this way, every part can be fully documented from the injection molding process or additive manufacturing through quality assurance to ejection from the production cell.

Components 100 percent traceable

Each gripper plate is 100% traceable via its DM code. Once the code has been scanned, production data such as build time, material, pressure curve and build chamber temperature are displayed on an individual website. In addition, the "AM Factory" uses a modular and scalable safety control system that Arburg has developed specifically for complex turnkey systems.