Robotics & Mechatronics 1: Machine Theory & Production Lines

Explore storage systems in chemical production lines, including hoppers with discharge mechanisms and weighing hoppers for precise dosing, and tanks with level measurement sensors for liquid mixing.

Identify storage systems on production lines, including hoppers and tanks, used to store and dispense powders, liquids, and chemicals before mixing or filling; use vibration motors to prevent outlet clogging.

Explore discharge mechanisms for hoppers, including gravity gates, belt conveyors, and screw conveyors, with emphasis on material suitability, flow control, and dosing accuracy.

Explore self-weighing hoppers equipped with load cells and PLC control to dose powders precisely, reading weighing signals, subtracting hopper weight, and executing weighted recipes through conveyors.

Measure tank liquid levels with a level sensor or ultrasonic sensor. Ultrasonic sensors send waves, time their return from liquid surface, and provide a reading, while powders require lot cells.

Explore conveyor systems, focusing on flat belt and modular belt, and design pulleys, bearings, shafts, belts, and frames; cover elevators and screwdrivers for powders with minimum material loss.

Explore conveyor system types, from modular and flat belts to screw, elevator, bucket, and chain conveyors, and learn how each design supports production lines and material handling.

Design a compact flat belt conveyor with aluminium profiles, bearings, shaft, pulley, and motor, outlining the main parts, belt length calculation, pulley diameter, and shaft coupling.

Explore modular belt design with plastic plates, pins, and gears. Size the belt, shafts, bearings, and motor mount for a 50 cm conveyor.

Understand elevator conveyors that lift seeds and grains from a low to a high point using a bucket-equipped inclined belt, with outlet for discharge into a mixer and packaging line.

Screw conveyors offer enclosed, low-spillage transport of grains and seeds, with a single shaft and welded helical screw, enabling simple, incline-capable design with bearings, frame, top cover, and motor.

Explore vibrational feeding systems, including linear vibration feeders and bowl feeders driven by electromagnetic drivers. See rotational feeders like turntables and star wheels that distribute bottles along production lines.

Explore feeding systems that prepare parts for pick-and-place machines on automatic assembly lines, including vibration bowl, step, and rotary feeders, orientation control, and part sorting.

Explore the step feeder: a hopper feeds long items through moving and fixed steps to a conveyor, with piston or linear guide motion and an alignment/rejection area.

Explore the vibration bowl feeder, with a bowl, base, angled springs, and an electromagnet that creates up-down and rotational motion, tuned 50–500 hertz to reach resonance for a stable feed.

Operate linear vibrational feeders with an electromagnet-driven tray, feeding seeds, powders, and screws, using springs and absorb springs to reduce vibration and noise, calibrating to resonance for reliable one-by-one feeding.

Explore turntables for bottle feeding and accumulation in production lines, including disk design, barriers, motors, and HDPE channels that guide and discharge bottles to conveyors.

Examine the stock wheel system where a feeder and conveyor move jars through capping and filling, with a star wheel holding jars in place.

Explore how linear guides and timing belts enable precise single-axis and three-axis movement for CNC and 3D printing, supporting pick-and-place of millimeter-scale SMD parts on PCBs.

explore one-axis linear motion driven by a motor, featuring screw rail guides, dual rail guides, and timing belt systems used in 3d printing, cnc machining, and pick-and-place tasks.

Learn how the t8 lead screw rail guide works, including the screw, brass nut, bearing house, and carriage that produce precise linear motion.

Examine the T8 lead screw dual road guide, featuring two side roads, road supports, bearing pillows, and cylindrical slides, with a CNC 3018 Pro tray demonstration.

Master timing belt based linear guides: learn how a pulley and a toothed belt produce accurate, slip-free motion with GT2 and T5 pitches, carriages, and sigma profiles.

Explore three axis linear motion by combining multiple guides to form x, y, and z axes for CNC machines, 3D printers, and pick-and-place lines.

Explore end effectors, the tools that enable CNC cutting, 3D printing heating to melt plastic, and pick-and-place actions. See how blades, bits, heating elements, clamps, and vacuums form different effectors.

Explore end effectors and manipulators for three-axis linear guides, including bottle capping, vacuum cups for pick and place, and clamping grippers, with pneumatics or motorized actuation.

Grippers serve as universal end effectors for pick and place, handling irregular shapes with motorised or pneumatic actuation, and are independent of object material, though fragile items may require vacuum.

Explore vacuum end effectors, including suction pumps, tubes, fittings, and cups, to pick up and place objects using vacuum pressure, clamps, and multi-cup configurations.

Explore rotational or motorized end effectors and their applications in cutting, capping, and drilling, powered by dc motors with blades, engraving bits, bottle capping devices, and three axis linear guides.

Explore Scara robots, featuring three rotational axes and a four-axis configuration, a compact workspace, and end effectors for fast, precise assembly with clamps, vacuum, or rotational end effectors.

Delta robots use three motors and ball joints to move lightweight aluminum rods, delivering fast, micrometer-level precision within a defined workspace for pick-and-place, packaging, and 3D printing.

Collaborative robots, or cobots, work beside humans with six-axis arms and harmonic gears. Safety laser sensors and force/torque sensors stop the robot to prevent injuries.

Explore forward kinematics as a mathematical localization method to determine a robot end effector's x, y, z position from joint angles and link lengths.

Explore inverse kinematics, solving for joint angles to move the end effector to a target x, y, z point, a complex, linear-algebra driven problem crucial for camera-guided robot grasping.

Robotics software from manufacturers solves forward and inverse kinematics, letting you set end effector dimensions and workspace limits to enable path planning and safe trajectories without mastering the math.

Explore a real production line through a study case, analyzing materials, conveying and feeding systems along with a bottle filling, capping, and distributing process step by step.

Examine a bottle filling and capping production line, from turntable dispatch through modular belt transport to vacuum-based pick-and-place and star wheel capping, with quality laser sensing.

Identify mechanical parts in production lines, including conveying, feeding, distribution systems, and raw materials used in machines, plus CAD basics for conveyors, frames, and linear guides with plc control.