new toy to play with at work :-)

Pffff ... wrong manufacturer! ;-)

Take this one. It **really** rocks!

Nick, from Kuka-land

As a toolbreaker, I don't get to play with robots a lot. Spending a couple of days learning how to program industrial robots, and another couple on the welding robot was some of the most interesting (and fun) work I did during my apprenticeship. Really impressive when we got to turn up the speed.

Many years ago, I was actually a part of a study to build an HMI which controlled a robot exclusively with a person's eyes. This was for disabled people at the time, although the applications are vast of course. I only got to control a dot on a computer screen, but I was also able to play with the test robot (with a simple pendant control). I think I was about 13 at the time. Great fun.

Regards,

Robin

Not at all impressed. As long as programming requires coordinate input you don't really gain a thing unless extremely high volumes of running the same assembly. For true breakthrough you need lead-through programming as we once saw on Eaton's Esab Mac 9001 - long gone for some unknown reason. It was one hell of a machine.

We will be running basicaly one part on the robot, I couple of different lengths but more or less the same part, and probobly two shifts in a couple of months. With only a 2 min cycle time it will let up build up a bank of parts to make turn around time to our customers much better. Panasonic does have an offline programming system but its expensive and would not make sense for our relatively simple parts.

James Crombie Design Engineer Silent Exhaust Systems

Good, luck, you're going to need it. In my experience with all things matsuSHITa I have found their products to be about the most unreliable on the market. While I have no experience with their robots, I have plenty of experience with a number of their other lines and while they are loaded with bells and whistles, they have a strong pattern of failures in short order.

Pete C.