Skip to Main Content

Regenerative Brake Module Case Study

Location

Lanco Integrated North America (Headquarters)

Industry

汽车

技术

手动、半自动和全自动

An automotive electronics technology manufacturer that produces systems for occupant protection, advanced driving assistance, and collaborative and automated driving vehicle systems.

Automotive Industry

Regenerative Brake Module Case Study

Regenerative Brake Module Case Study

Lanco Integrated developed an automated process to assemble the electronics control module for a “brake-by-wire system “, allowing for regenerative braking in electric or hybrid-electric vehicles.
The modules were required every 15 seconds and the process consisted of:

  • Dual manual loading stations for the housing, 2 sizes of capacitors, an inductor and 2 different coil retention plates. This station scanned the 2D barcode on the housing and the capacitors and tracked the lot code of the other components along with the various assembly steps in our database.
  • The capacitor leads were cut and formed and inserted back into cradles in the housing by the robot, the final lead position was inspected via vision.
  • IDT terminals were reel fed and cut before placement by a separate robot retaining the capacitor leads. These terminals were vision inspected for damage before placement and pressed to position monitoring force and distance to ensure proper placement.
  • Two sizes of coils were tray fed in three different locations on tray de-stacking devices to be placed in the housing by robots. Their 2D barcodes were scanned and their position and connection pins inspected by vision after placement.
  • An Inductor was picked and using a pallet shift pressed into the housing, monitoring both force and distance. The insertion terminals were then inspected by vision for correct placement and possible damage.
  • Then the coil retention plates were transferred with vacuum plates and a pallet shift to their positions in the housing and snapped into place retaining the coils. They are then probed for final positional verification to ensure retention.
  • The housing had a final clean with ionized air and a vacuum before uploading all the process data and offloading it to the downstream PCB processing equipment.

Challenge

The client tasked Lanco Integrated with reducing the footprint of their system compared to existing equipment in the plant. The existing systems for different parts at the customer’s site incorporated rotary dial transfer mechanisms which lead to a large layout since the stations are radially aligned to the dial nests.

The customer had envisioned twin dial machines to make the part and was concerned that they did not have sufficient floor space remaining in their facility for this installation. This was complicated by the proposed location of the line which was next to 2 aisles and surrounded a building support post.

Lanco Integrated Solution

Lanco Integrated reviewed the suggested systems layouts and examples of smaller systems already in the customer’s plant. Suggesting various iterations and combining the systems onto a common compact loop we were able to reduce the floor space requirements significantly. By switching to a pallet-based approach to transfer the parts between stations we could take advantage of our multi-stop design on the same pallet enabling us to use single axis placers in conjunction with the conveyor motion to place both the coil plates and the inductors.

Outcome

Lanco Integrated’s pallet-based approach reduced the required floor space by approximately 35% providing a small compact pallet loop versus the dual dial table proposal. We enabled the customer to have all their material flow into the machine from the same side reducing labor required versus the dial tables which would have had material load positions in multiple locations reducing around the machines. By utilizing items like the tray de-stacking design, the space required for full trays was greatly reduced and a chute for empty tray disposal that could easily be removed gave us the access for maintenance when required. This allowed us to get the line very close to the aisle and saved our customer valuable plant space.

Regenerative Brake Module

“There are very few automation suppliers that I have confidence in to handle very large or complex automation projects.  Lanco has proven over time that it can handle the large and complex projects." 

Ken, Sr. Manufacturing Development Engineer - Technology Manufacturer
Lanco Integrated Contact Icon