Pneumatic grippers for delicate, circular workpieces
06 July 2011
The new Air-Hand type MFD/MFU from Gimatic provides consistent and smooth internal gripping from internal diameters 8 to 85 mm. Suitable for handling delicate products such as glass or plastic containers preventing breaking, marking or scratchin, Air-Hands are pneumatically operated single acting cylinders. Once positioned in the centre of a circular workpiece opening, the downwards (MFD) or upwards (MFU) motion deforms, expanding the plastic bellow for gentle gripping on the internal diameter.
The plastic material is available in red silicone or black EPDM. Silicone provides a wider temperature range and it assures a longer life time but may not be suitable in some industries as it can affect parts post handling surface treatment such as painting or coating. EDM is non-marking and it also provides higher friction. These silicone and EPDM parts are available as spares for replacement when worn.
The expected medium life time of the EPDM parts is about 0.5 million cycles and about 1 million cycles for the silicone bellows.
Centring cones in nylon with stainless steel mounting screws are available as an option; sizes 33 and larger are provided with a through hole.
Air connections are made either at the side of the cylinder body or centrally from the top. The units with side air fitting come with a trough hole facilitating the additional function of product pressure or leak-testing during the gripping operation. Air-Hands with the two functions combined are simple but reliable and highly cost effective tools.
Gripper mountings can be either custom made to suit machine integration or by selecting suitable brackets from the range of Gimatic standard clamping parts.
Air-Hand sizes from 27 upwards are equipped with magnetic pistons which can be supplied with an optional housing to fit one or two position sensors.
Gimatic Air-Hands form part of the extensive range of Gimatic automation components distributed in the UK by Precision Motion (CoFil).
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