Delta's Automated Solution Performs Accurate and Highly Efficient Multi-angle Glue Dispensing

Electronics technologies have developed rapidly and glue dispensing has become increasingly important for its role in electronic component bonding. Manual glue dispensing often applies inconsistent amounts of glue at inaccurate positions resulting in a great many defective products. The application of glue-dispensing machines has become crucial for replacing labor in various industries, such as printed circuit boards (PCBs) for 3C or automobile products, IC packaging, optical device processing, electronic circuit parts gluing, lighting industry, case bonding, waterproof sealing for frames and screens of smartphones and a variety of panels.

Glue dispensing technology has developed for different sizes of workpieces, and applications, and over the years has integrated with 3-axis or 4-axis robots to work on multiple sides of a workpiece. However, the accuracy and stability or 3-axis or 4-axis robots cannot fulfill all application needs. Delta provides an automated solution to control the amount of glue and the dispensing position accurately and utilizes a 5-axis robot for ± 360° rotation and multi-angle glue dispensing.

Delta has applied its automated glue-dispensing solution to a PLC production line at one of its plants in Wujiang, China. The solution adopts a 5-axis robot — a SCARA robot and an additional axis — which works with a machine vision system for conveyor tracking and executes multi-point glue dispensing on PCBs. Integrating with the PC-based industrial motion controller MH1 Series, the solution can accurately control the amount of glue onto the assigned position and complete the glue-dispensing process. A simple operation interface is provided for users to configure the robot's motion paths per the points of a Gerber file, so the robot can follow the workpieces during conveyance.

The Machine Vision System DMV2000 facilitates the capture of a workpiece's coordinates and assists the robot compensate the workpiece's movement on the conveyor automatically. There is no need for any fixture during the process and the workpieces can be arranged freely on the conveyor. Delta's Human Machine Interface (HMI) displays the parameters of dispensing output and robot configuration for real-time monitoring to reduce defects and enhance production efficiency. All the configured parameters are traceable and analyzable if uploaded to a manufacturing execution system (MES) in the process of manufacturing.

The benefits of Delta's automated glue-dispensing solution are as follows:

• Seamlessly integrated solution
Delta designs and manufactures the key components of the automated solution, which are the 5-axis SCARA robot, the robot controller, the machine vision system, the motion controller, and the HMI. They are seamlessly integrated into a smart workstation for fast, stable, high-efficiency and high-productivity production. The workstation not only saves a great amount of labor but also provides ease of operation and convenient maintenance.

• Multiple degrees of freedom for shorter operation time
The 5-axis robot can rotate the dispensing end by ± 360° and flips it by ± 70° horizontally to perform multi-DOF for obstacle avoidance, faster dispensing and higher efficiency.

• Automatic compensation for dispensing position
The robot can perform accurate conveyor tracking of workpieces in real time, and achieve precise glue dispensing with Machine Vision System DMV2000 obtaining the workpieces' coordinates and positions.

• Simplified user interface for rapid multi-project creation and fast changeover
The process parameters of robot configuration and the machine vision system are integrated for easy operation. Users can create multiple projects swiftly by DXF file parsing or the points of a PCB Gerber file for flexible line changeover.

• Real-time monitoring parameters and output data
Delta's HMI displays the parameters of a configured position, positioning distance, speed and the weight of the glue pot / glue bucket for real-time monitoring.

• Anomaly alarms for personnel safety
Anomaly alarms force the glue-dispensing machine to stop immediately as soon as it malfunctions or when there is any sudden incident affecting the pressing process to keep personnel and workpieces safe.

Delta's automated glue-dispensing solution helps to build an integrated and smart workstation that performs motion path following, position compensation, real-time monitoring, and accurate control of the amount of glue and the dispensing position. This solution is labor-saving and maintenance time-saving, and can work with MES software for data tracing and efficient management.