robolink joints and grippers

Martin Raak | 5. December 2012

Some words about grippers in combination with our robolink joint arms:

Different grippers can be attached to our arm tubes. One common solution are pneumatic grippers. They are (often) lightweight and not so expansive. We can adapt several grippers from SCHUNK, FESTO, GIMATIC, FIPA and others easily. Please ask us. Also suction systems are (usually) no problem for us.

But often pneumatics are not possible to be used (for example in mobile robots). In that case, we have the choice between electrical grippers or our robolink wire driven gripper. The igus gripper can not be adapted to 4 or 5 DOF arms because of 2 reasons: 1) the leading of the wire through multiple joints causes friction, as the gripper is spring loaded, the spring may not be sufficient in strength to close the gripper properly. 2) the aditional bowden cable can not be leaded through the lower joint because of space restriction. The igus gripper may thus be combined only with 2 or 3 DOF arms. We are workink on a better solution in this case.

My favorite product in the moment for the combination with our system is the electrical gripper by GIMATIC called MPPM 1606 (2 jaws) or MPTM 1606 (3 jaws). It is lightweight and really easy to control. Datasheets in ENG/IT and DE/FR are attached. We can adapt the grippers and also lead the electrical cable through any of our arms. Please ask us in case of interest!