In many industries, production is increasingly moving in the direction of "high-mix - low-volume". As a result, companies that can produce a wide range of variants even in the smallest batch sizes without any manual set-up work are at a particular advantage. This flexibility is now made possible by the BSWS-R quick jaw change system from SCHUNK. With the latest evolutionary stage of the BSWS series, the specialist for gripping systems and clamping technology, headquartered in Lauffen am Neckar, enables the gripper fingers of robots to be changed automatically during the ongoing process - in less than three seconds.

Until now, automated changing has only been possible by replacing the entire gripper. The BSWS-R, on the other hand, accomplishes this task with minimal use of components: all that is needed for each gripper finger is a quick jaw change base, two adapter bolts and a storage station. The base is screwed to the workpiece-specific gripper finger and the adapter bolts are attached to the base jaw of the gripper. When the base moves into the deposit station, the locking bolt is actuated and the positive-locking mechanism is unlocked. The robot moves upwards out of the quick jaw change system. The fingers and base remain in the storage station. No additional effort is required as the robot performs the change under its own power. The new system design eliminates the need to drill through the finger. Only threaded holes are required. This gives users even more freedom when designing their fingers.

The BSWS-R is available in nine sizes. In smaller versions up to size 100, the storage stations are designed with elastomer bearings. This makes them ideal for use with cobots. For even greater process reliability, an optional inductive proximity switch is available to check whether the finger is in the deposit station. The base is also prepared for the installation of an RFID data carrier for finger coding. In addition to the new BSWS-R, the two manual changeover systems in the series will continue to be available: With the tried and tested BSWS, the operator changes the finger with an Allen key, with the BSWS-M at the touch of a button.

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