Robots conquer dry ice cleaning

At Hannover Messe 2018, which takes place this year from April 23 to 27, the industry comes together to showcase the latest robot solutions. At the booth of HaDo International GmbH (Hall 4, Stand A12), visitors will learn about an innovation where robots do not perform usual pick-and-place or screwing tasks, but instead clean – in combination with a dry ice blasting device.

Whether in the automotive, plastics, medical technology, or electronics industries: various sectors are confronted with the issue of technical cleanliness. Harald Hartmann, Managing Director of HaDo International GmbH, manufacturer of dry ice blasting machines, says: “We are seeing more and more companies, including those in the supplier industry, where the demands for technical cleanliness and ready-to-assemble parts for assembly processes are increasing immensely. The challenge is that current cleaning processes in many companies are carried out manually and are rather imprecise. Ultimately, in addition to injection-molded parts and composite components, STL and 3D printed parts in small and medium series should be delivered as particle- or burr-free as possible. One way to meet this demand and solve existing cleaning problems in companies is the introduction of automated cleaning.”

In HaDo International’s solution, the advantages of the COOLMASTER dry ice blasting device are combined with those of the flexible lightweight robots from Universal Robots in a specially developed cleaning cell. By using collaborative robots, completely new and almost unlimited possibilities open up in the context of dry ice cleaning, allowing parts to be precisely and repeatedly cleaned automatically or subsequently inspected. Two different working methods are possible: either the robot moves the nozzle over the precisely positioned component on a workpiece carrier, or the robot uses special grippers to precisely guide the parts past the fixed-position nozzle at the exact spot to be processed. Once all dirt particles are thoroughly removed, the cleaning cell tailored to the specific needs, with integrated suction and filtration system, can automatically complete the work.

For companies, the cleaning cell results in significant savings in time and costs. Furthermore, it achieves a tremendous process improvement and quality enhancement of their end products. The market’s demand for such a cleaning solution has been proven over the past months. Already today, initial cleaning cells, especially in medical technology and the plastics industry, are successfully in use. Visitors to Hannover Messe 2018 can personally experience the benefits of automated cleaning at our booth A12 in Hall 4 and get to know our cleaning cell, consisting of the COOLMASTER and the UR3 from Universal Robots.”