Robotic data switch

[vette eaterr]

I'm a newly hired engineer at a little factory here in Ohio. Well long story short we had a layoff and I was cheap and the other engineer wasn't and now I'm on my own..... So down to my problem, we run a robot that pulls parts off of a machine and places them into an automatic fixturing device. The fixture signals the robot that the part is present on the fixture via proxy sensors and confirms air cylinder retraction. What I'm being asked is that they want to have 2 fixtures in the robot cage but only one working at a time. So I need some sort of switch that completely disconnects fixture 1 and connects fixture 2 and vise versa. I was wondering if a plain old A/B data switch would do the trick? If you have any ideas please let me know. Thanks in advance.

Bob Neff

 

[ivancho]

Can you be a little more specific?....

How are the fixtures connected? What is switching the fixures usage? I guess I am not really picturing the situation :cry:

Ivancho

 

[vette eaterr]

Well here's what I'm looking at we make a 12" plastic box the robot pulls it out of the press and puts the box on a fixture. The proxy sensor energizes and the fixture expands (involes inputs and outputs from robot, the robot controlls the fixture). What I want to do is have a 24" fixture in the same robot cage for when we run the 24" box,and have the ability to manually switch the robot inputs and outputs between the fixtures. So when i'm running the 12" mold then switch to the 24" mold I want to be able to switch the input wires and output wires without having to always unscrew wires.

 

[justin_sane]

How many wires?

What types of signals are on the wires?

How does the robot controller react to the sensor getting disconnected, does it error and need resetting?