Pneumatic and hydraulic grippers are amongst the preferred gripper sorts (together with servo-electric). In the event you’re questioning whether or not pneumatic or hydraulic grippers are prone to be the perfect match in your software, this text is for you as we evaluate and distinction the design, efficiency and value of hydraulic and pneumatic grippers.
Spoiler: As showdowns go, this one is simple to name. We’ll quickly uncover that for collaborative robotic purposes, there isn’t a critical competitors between the 2: pneumatic grippers are the perfect selection in your cobot-powered purposes.
Let’s discover out why…
What’s a hydraulic gripper?
Hydraulic grippers are heavy-duty grippers that apply the kind of forces required to deal with heavy (often >50kg, 110.23 lb) objects.
How does a hydraulic gripper work?
Hydraulic grippers use pressurized fluids to maneuver a piston. When the piston strikes, it transfers this drive to the claw, opening and shutting it.
What’s a pneumatic gripper? How does a pneumatic gripper work?
Pneumatic grippers use strain from a compressed air provide system to provide the ability required to maneuver an internal piston, thereby opening and shutting the pneumatic gripper fingers (or ‘jaws’). Pneumatic gripper mechanisms comprise no motors or gears, which makes it simple to translate the ability of a piston/cylinder system right into a gripping drive.
Because the majority of producing services have already got entry to compressed air, deploying pneumatic grippers is simple and cost-effective. One of many principal advantages of pneumatic grippers is that they supply a excessive quantity of gripping drive in a small, gentle and low-cost bundle. For manufacturing services the place area is at a premium, pneumatic grippers are a cost-effective and ergonomic selection. They’re additionally fairly simple to take care of –upon getting your pneumatic gripper working, it may possibly present hundreds of thousands of cycles with out requiring upkeep.
What’s the distinction between pneumatic and hydraulic grippers?
One of many main the explanation why hydraulic grippers are not often, if ever, utilized in collaborative automation is as a result of the everyday payloads do not match. For causes of security, ease of deployment, price, mobility and footprint, cobots are designed for lower-than-hydraulic payloads of as much as round 16kg (35.3 lbs). Due to this fact, for nearly each conceivable cobot-powered software, utilizing a hydraulic gripper could be costly overkill.
If it is advisable to elevate weights of 500kg (1102.31lb), for instance, a regular industrial robotic with a hydraulic gripper and fencing could be your best option. However for Common Robots prospects, pneumatics supply completely sufficient power density for purposes resembling meeting, materials dealing with and machine tending.
Moreover, since hydraulic grippers comprise pistons and oiled elements, they’re much higher-maintenance than their servo-electric and pneumatic counterparts. Hydraulic gripper upkeep can also be complicated and might require expert technicians to take care of the oil, pump and reservoir. This highlights one other essential cause why pneumatic grippers are usually most well-liked over hydraulic grippers for collaborative purposes: cobots are designed for simple operation by non-expert end-users, so including a fancy hydraulic gripping system to a cobot will undermine the general system’s ease of use.
Since they depend on air relatively than fluids, pneumatic robotic grippers may be deployed in clear room environments. By comparability, hydraulic robotic grippers are too messy –particularly after they fail and leak hydraulic fluid into your work cell.
Moreover, by way of price, hydraulic grippers are rather more costly than their pneumatic counterparts. If you’re drawn to cobots partly due to their low price in comparison with conventional automation, then it does not make numerous sense to deploy a hydraulic gripper that might simply price greater than the cobot itself.
Lastly, if accuracy is essential to your collaborative software, then needless to say pneumatic gripping techniques present better accuracy than their hydraulic counterparts. Your gripper’s URCap software program and straightforward integration with Common Robots cobot vary ensures a relentless circulation of information that can be utilized to tweak your purposes and processes, scale back downtime and enhance productiveness.
URCaps are particular software program applications designed to make sure clean programming and management of UR licensed end-effectors and parts. UR+ is a world ecosystem of parts, software program, and software kits which were validated and authorized to be mechanically, electrically and digitally appropriate with cobots from Common Robots. UR+ hosts a wide array of pneumatic grippers from you to select from.
Pneumatic grippers simply win this robotic gripper showdown, however they’ve their very own limitations. For instance, as a result of they depend on pressurized air circulation, drive management is just not as exact as that supplied by electrical grippers. Offering a fragile grip may also be a problem for pneumatic techniques because it’s exhausting to regulate the gripper at very low pressures. If an exterior air provide is required, this may add further price to your deployment. And whereas pneumatic grippers are appropriate for a lot of clear room purposes, in the event that they fail, they’ll contaminate the air contained in the work cell. For these causes, some producers desire to make use of electrical grippers for his or her materials dealing with wants.
UR+ is a one-stop-shop for pneumatic robotic grippers
Let’s check out a few of pneumatic robotic gripper choices accessible via UR+
The GRIPKIT-P Sequence from Weiss Robotics is a pneumatic gripper and dealing with system for Common Robots. The GRIPKIT-P system incorporates all the pieces finish customers must arrange materials dealing with, meeting and machine tending duties inside minutes. In the event you want excessive dynamics and gripping drive with compact dimensions, GRIPKIT-P pneumatic grippers (in parallel or centric design) are supreme.
