We have designed an ‘intelligent’ system for stocking unprocessed wood pieces ready to be loaded into the machine and processed. Read on for its features and benefits.
More and more often our clients would ask us for a warehouse capable of loading the machine autonomously, thereby making it unmanned.
This led us to spend the last few years studying a system that would stock the wood pieces and therefore replace the operator in the only operation for which our machines still required human intervention, i.e., loading the unprocessed wood pieces into the machine, after which they are output as perfectly finished pieces that do not require any further sanding or adjustments.
This commitment has resulted in the intelligent magazine called Everest. We chose for it the name of the highest mountain peak in the world because in this magazine it is possible to store same-sized wood pieces in stacks as tall as mountains containing up to 400 pieces that can be distributed across 8 work levels.
Features of the new intelligent magazine
The magazine has been designed as a loading/unloading buffer capable of receiving pieces of varying length, from the shortest to the longest – up to a maximum of 6,000 mm in length.
Before being loaded, the size of each piece is checked by sensors that read its width, length and thickness so as to make sure that loading always occurs correctly and without mistakes.
The piece is fetched from the loading belt, included in the magazine, by a manipulator consisting of suction cups that can pick up the selected piece.
The manipulator has been designed to be expandable thanks to wings that are lowered when needed – when the piece is longer than standard – so as to ensure it is picked up correctly.
The question is: how does the machine know which piece is to be picked up and where it is? This is made possible by the fact that the machine’s control unit stores all of the pieces’ position in its memory.
In this way, based on the job order selected by the operator, the machine knows which pieces it must pick up thanks to its management software.
Processing
Processing occurs in two different ways:
- The machine picks up, in sequence, 2 stiles and 2 rails in order to make a sash and a frame;
- All stiles are processed in sequence, followed by the processing of all of the rails.
Obviously, this choice is made by the operator who decides what is best at the time, demonstrating how flexible this magazine is.
The strength of this system certainly lies in its autonomy of operation. The machine can therefore work all day long thanks to a maximum stacking of 400 workpieces, which allows for machining to be performed continuously even through the night until all pieces have been processed.
Everest is a modular and adaptable system
Equally important is the fact that the magazine is designed to be modular. The standard module, in fact, has a capacity of 400 pieces, but there is the possibility of adding a second module, also for 400 pieces, so as to reach a total of 800 pieces.
This is a considerable capacity that can meet even the highest productivity requirements.
We would like to emphasise that this solution is standard in the larger machines – Woodpecker Performance 3 and 5 – but perfectly adaptable to the other models as well.
This is because when we design something we leave nothing to chance. We study every detail to meet all requirements, from those of the smallest companies to those of the largest ones.
