Hi all,

I'm currently working on implementing cobots in our factory. What are some the best ways to mount a robot? The cobot is going to be used for a pick and place application. We've tried mounting the robot to a beam above the work space, also placed the cobot on the wall. Both ceiling and wall have limited the robots joint mobility. We may try placing the robot in front of the table (like the operator). What methods has the community adopted for mounting a cobot? What type of mounting does the Path feature work best for? Thank you for your time.

Patrick

@ArigatoMrCoboto we generally deploy our robots on a pedastal stand. It’s a 6” column of 8020 material that is secured to the floor. This allows us to have maximum joint mobility, we have robots that work high and low using these stands. We have also mounted a couple of robots directly to the table where the work is being done. This works well when the joint positions can accommodate being on a table top as you don’t worry about any misplacemrnt or movement between the robot stand and the workpiece. I’d say though that 85% of all our robots in the field are on stands that sit in front of the equipment roughly where the operator used to stand. 

Matthew,

Thank you very much indeed for the response. 

Patrick

Careful with this cylinder as well, it is a common issue when mounting the robot upside down.

@matthewd92 Can you please suggest what type of mounting you use for mounting UR on Table ?
Do you bolt base of UR robot directly to table or you use dampers between robot and table?
Right now I have mounted UR on a base plate made up of aluminium, which sits on top of table and we can feel small vibration at end effector whenever it operates.
Thank you for your time.

If we are having the table top made we just bolt directly to the table, if it’s an existing top we will use an aluminum spacer. It’s the same plate we use to bolt to the aluminum extrusion stand we use. 

The table needs to be rigid as in motion the robot is transferring a lot of torque through that plate and so if not rigid it will cause vibration issues.  Are the vibrations you are feeling when the robot is sitting still?  If so, what type of robot? I know the UR3 used to be bad about having a vibration at the end of arm but that is mostly gone with later software releases. 

@matthewd92 Yes we are using UR3. 
There is no vibration when robot is sitting still. But when it is in motion we can feel vibration at end of robot.
I am planning to bolt UR3 to an half inch aluminium plate and then use aluminium spacer between half inch plate and table.
Do think that's right way to build a rigid base ?

Thank you for your time.

Is the table itself rigid?  All we use between the table and the robot is a 3/4" aluminum spacer.  If the table itself is not rigid though you may see some vibrations. If you bolt the robot to a more rigid table do you still see the vibrations, do you feel vibrations in the table as well as the robot when it is moving?

No table wasn't rigid itself so we are planning to use more rigid table.
If I understood your mounting correctly then its bolting Robot to 3/4" aluminum plate (as a table top) and placing it on table without any additional mounts or rubber dampers?

That is correct, its the same robot adapter plate we use for the extrusion so easy to bolt to a table top.

What payload are you going to be carrying?  How fast are you planning to move?  Do you have high accelerations?  

We use aluminum for all of our mounting plates, 19mm thick plate. We generally place heli-coils for the threads but that’s because our stands are designed to have the robot be taken off repeatedly as they are hired and fired. We’ve never had an issue though with threads pulling out of the aluminum and we move our robots at the upper end of accel and velocity.