Robot Maintenance
Robot maintenance and the frequency of that maintenance depend on the environment in which that robot is working. Industrial use robots can be utilized in may locations. These locations range from clean rooms for electronics, to paint booths and harsh welding applications.
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Significance
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Precision performance is the key for the repetitive motion by a robot. In electronic clean rooms these robots are responsible for the placement of small electronic parts on circuit boards. Painting robots maybe used to spray paint entire car or truck bodies. Welding robots may have to weld continuously at various awkward angles and in an environment detrimental to humans.
Function
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Maintenance to a robot may include daily cleaning to the structural body. Robots have many articulating joints that require proper lubrication in the form of gear oils and special grease. Air hoses for painting robots, depending on use, may have to be check on an hourly bases. Welding robots may have gas hoses and special tubes for wire that feed the welding torches placed at the end of the rotating wrist movement.
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Types
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All robots regardless of the type or the application they are placed in, are controlled by electrical power and special electronic signals. This power and discreet signals are conducted by wires. In many cases hundreds of wires run from a main control box to the robot itself. Each of these wires will have numerous, separate screw terminals. These screw terminals can come loose from vibration and a scheduled tightening maintenance of the wires should be performed.
Identification
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Poor maintenance practices can be identified by an inferior performance of the robot. Generally associated with poor performance is sluggish response to motion, missed part placement or erratic behavior in the programmed task. At times it can be as simple as a loose bolt, lack of lubrication in a joint or more often than not, a wire is loose at a terminal. This loose wire can cause arcing across the junction and create erratic behavior in the robots motion.
Considerations
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All maintenance personnel who perform work on robots should be well trained and understand the complete workings of the machine. They should also be trained in proper lock out tag out procedures. Not only will this save destruction to property but aid in the down time due to injury that may be caused by improper shutdown of the robot.
Prevention/Solution
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A preventive maintenance schedule should be a vital role in any production facility in which robots are used. Most robot manufactures provide key elements in the documentation provided with their machines. This documentation will not only denote a time schedule for maintenance, but generally a spare parts list is provided. This spare parts list should be maintained for the times when the robot goes down due to a broken or malfunctioning device.
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