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Automating Your Fluid Dispenser Using a DIN Rail Mount, a Bit Less Cumbersome for NFL Fans…?

I remember years ago while living in Dallas attending a Cowboys-Steelers game, seeing versions of this creative automated fluid dispenser on many fans at the old Texas Staduium. Currently, most NFL venues ban this fluid dispensing wardrobe accessory , and even if they did not, most football fans nowadays are a bit more discrete and sensible, I think….

For automation of adhesive dispensers there are certainly a variety of options available to assembly manufacturers; XYZ table top robots, SCARA robots, fixed speed or variable speed rotary tables, cap spinners….the list goes on.  Often the assemblers utilize  batch processing or increasingly, high speed assembly lines  or fully integrated fluid dispensing cells.

Many of our customers, especially in medical device, start out with either a handheld or a semi automated bench top AirFree® fluid dispenser and then as their product takes off and the required fluid assembly rates increase, manufacturers need to move towards automation. Fishman® has all of the fluid dispensing products needed for our customers to seamlessly move to automation. Our experienced Application and Technical Support Team help them do it….either one step at a time or a whole process at once.

fluid dispenser
fluid dispenser

Thanks to the maturation of robotics technology, mostly spurned by the automotive manufacturers, many industries are using robots and other automation, such as rotary tables (see below), for a wider range of applications, most notably the assembly of components where adhesive is dispensed as an integral part of the process. We certainly see it in the assembly of medical devices and medical diagnostic lateral flow test strips, where production rates have soared and the repeatability of fluid dispense is increasingly scrutinized.  Some of Fishman®‘s customers looking for fluid dispensing automation use the Fishman® DIN rail mount version;  The SmartDispenser® Integration Kit (SDIK) is designed to mount on a 19″ din rail in an electronics cabinet on any fully automated dispense system. See schematic below. It also shows how a Fishman® customer has utilized the Push-To-Connect™ Dispensing Gun Mount the SmartDispenser® Syringe Filling System and the SmartDispenser® Syringe Priming System while also integrating the process into their MES to optimize the automation and efficiency of the fluid dispense process.

 

SDIK™ Automation Schematic

Designing a bench top fluid dispenser for eventual automation is what Fishman® Corp did with our SmartDispenser®. Every AirFree® SmartDispenser® is equipped with a twelve pin, I/O terminal connector which is located on the back of the unit. Every SmartDispenser® comes ready to communicate with programmable logic controllers for easy integration into any automation system.

 Industry Week’s blog post from this months’ IMTS show in Chicago highlighted the Motoman display of this blackjack-dealing robot How cool is that? I wonder if it can dispense fluids too….

As a side note, this show was deemed by all to be incredibly successful, breaking all records for attendance and I quote from the Industry Week’s blog post, ” ….this translated into a kind of energy rarely felt since the recession of ’08/’09. These 100,000+ attendees were in Chicago to buy. To buy a lot. And they made that clear from the start..” I wish the major news media would pick up this type of positive manufacturing news  as well as the first hand reports on the state of manufacturing direct from Manufacturing Executives rather than  just all the negative reports of recent weeks!