California Robotics and Automation

You may be surprised to know that Lodi California is not only a wine makers paradise but also at the cutting edge of technology with our many and varied industries. Here at Bransom Tech Services, we make all sorts of tool for the robots our area uses to produce food and wine. Here is a video of our SGM Series of grippers we use to palletize boxes and bales.The tool is operated by air and a 24vdc control system, this is standard for any robot. In this video we show the SGM1727 4-Zone gripper for 100lb products and the SGM1117 for 60 lb products.

Case Erectors are not cheap. If you use a Case Erector, you are limited by the case erector to the product you are producing. What if that product is 8 feet long? What would that case erector look like? How about if the product was 10 feet or more? How would you handle it? How would you pay for it and more importantly, how hard would it be to keep running. Here at BTS we shift the paradigm of case erector technology, combining the power of a robot with the utility of a case erector. But that is not all! Our Kawasaki robot can do double duty as a case erector AND a Pick 'n Place Robot for these 10 foot downspouts. our LP-120 Packaging Machine does all that and more. Enjoy the video!!

In this video we show the Teach Pendant and how you can select pallet heights for your product. Using Kawasaki K-Roset simulation software we can build an application a our office before turning on the robot. In this case we have 4, 5 and 6 Layers selectable via a switch on the pendant. There is other information too. This robot can place product on either pallet. It can stack over the top of a full pallet in case the forklift operator is late getting to the palletizer.

We are building another palletizing application for a customer, This machine makes 50 lb bales of Rice Hulls. Rice hulls are the coating for the seeds, or grains, of the rice plant. To protect the seed during the growing season, the hull is made of hard materials, including opaline silica and lignin. Rice hulls help drainage in grain beds and are used as a pressing aid for grape and fruit products.They add no flavor, no color and no aroma when used in beer and wine production. They are added to the wine press before the fruit is added.

A machine to package long items using a robot and our LP packaging machine. In this video we show the Beta Testing of the LP120 machine. It can handle products up to 4x4x120in and uses a Kawasaki RS020 Robot to Pick 'n Place the product into the box. We also designed an End of Arm Tool that can double as a case erector, providing Box Picking and Product Picking on the same machine. This video was taken during BETA Testing. We are just about ready to release the machine to the customer as soon as it passes some safety tests this week.

I needed to increase the voltage/power for a machine to be installed at one of my customers. It is a very large Press-Brake. The machine is used to bend large pieces of metal. The nature of the machine requires sudden usage of power when the large pitman arm of the press brake has to be stopped. They use an electromagnet. Those of us with experience in this know you can get voltage dips due to the magnet saturating or collapsing. This dip will cause some electronics to fault out. The solution is in this video

If you saw my simulation of the Wine Club Helper on Rumble, here is the actual robot - setup and running. The bottles are empty because we did not want to accidentally make a mess if the robot dropped a bottle but no bottles were dropped and everything performed exactly as planned. This robot is planned as a tool anyone can own to start a business doing the quarterly wine club for smaller wine producers. You setup the robot - it is on wheels. Then you lock it in place while the robot packs carriers or boxes of wine, you are the robot's helper, keeping the cases full and the carriers loaded in the cartridge carriers. In the future, mankind will be valued for the technology they have mastered.

We have been using the MRT chassis (Mobile Robot Tender) with various projects and this project is for a major wine club distributor. Large wineries contract with companies to send out their wine club cases. The MRT Wine Club Helper is a product that can be deployed at such facilities. This simulation does not violate our NDA. If you want more information, let me know. We have images of the 4-Bottle Gripper at the beginning of the video. For wine club we use a single gripper to pick up to 6 different wines for members.

We are building a modular magnetic picking tool

We have been deploying these safety scanners for years on our robots. We had to write software in the Autostart.PC file to make them work right but now Kawasaki has created a small safety controller that simplifies all the work we formerly had to do. The controller attaches to the robot directly and the software adds menus in the teach pendant that are more powerful than our old method of setting up listening posts in the software for safety devices. If you are an automation guy, you probably know what I am talking about. It is ..complicated to describe. This video is pretty much all there is for the consumer to understand when purchasing this device for a robot. If used correctly, you do not have to install fencing and workflow is not interrupted by procedural "button pushes" and the time-consuming "lockout/tagout". The devices are approved as you can see in this video and others I have posted on my website.

There is a lot of chatter about collaborative robots in my industry. But here at BTS, we have been doing "safe to work with" automation for many years. The problem with robotics is the space required to deploy them. How do you put a robot in a space that is already surrounded by people and equipment? Many machines have a need for specialized automation for performing ancillary functions such as placing sheets for pallets, stacking bags and boxes or assisting someone by flipping parts and placing them into position. Imagine if you had to place electronics on a board. Years ago the parts were huge and a human could do it. Today they are so small, you would have to work with tweezers and a microscope to build a cell phone.

The machines in this video gather up cans of every size and stack them on a pallet. As each layer is built up, you need a piece of fiber board between layers to keep the cans stable (they will slide off) and to keep them from scratching each other. Typically a person does this dangerous job. But with robotic automation, we can make this chore safe and reliable. And with Kawasaki KRoset Simulation Software, I can test my robot before the customer commits to the purchase. There is an added feature of using the right kind of robot. Here we are using a Kawasaki RS015X robot with an extremely long reach to not only place tie sheets on the pallet but also to pull a sample of the product per FDA rules. Since this is a simulation, all we are trying to do is confirm the robot will operate within the space we have been given. There are a series of red cylinders used to "spot" the robot for the 3 jobs it will perform: 1) Fiber Tie Sheet placement, 2) Sampling of product and 3) collection of data about sampling.

We are stacking boxes on a pallet using a Kawasaki 4 Axis Robot. This company packages Walnuts and Almonds. Central California is one of the largest nut producing areas in the world. Here in the San Joaquin Valley, we have many customers that process walnuts and almonds. We work on their equipment and improve their processes. There is a very good chance you have eaten one of our walnuts or almond products today. Enjoy!

We manufacture and build a variety of machines here at BTS. One of our machines is the AFCW. This machine can be integrated into an existing production line to perform automated, direct to package processing. In this case we are filling boxes and drums of powder coat paint. The system can control a variety of valve-types but here we open and close a butterfly valve, cover the container and fill with product.

This is a video in our History Series. Our company began in 1972 and there have been a lot of projects completed in that time. We did not always have a camera and so I have been looking back through the thousands of photos I have on my computer to see if I can find some of the old history of the company.

This video shows the installation and final production of a machine tending robot installed on an Okuma CNC lathe. The customer wanted the machine to make cylinders without the employee having to load and unload the cylinders. Each part weighs roughly 15kg. No jobs were lost, no people were hurt in the installation and operation of this robot.

In this video we are packaging plastic tubes into a container. In the past, the customer dropped these tubes into a bag and later sorted them on a table by hand. This machine places a chute under the machine to re-direct the tubes to an infeed conveyor. Once there are enough tubes in place, the robot picks them out of the conveyor and places them in a container. Once the container is full, the machine presents the package to a second robot arm for final processing. We are using a Kawasaki duAro robot integrated into one of our RBC Machines and controlling it all with our C700 Controller.

We install these devices in manufacturing plants for a variety of reasons. In this video we show you how it can be used to operate lights and operate a bin dumper for almonds, walnuts and other nuts. In the bin dumper scenario, the forklift loads a tote of almonds into a device called a bin dumber. In the past, the forklift operator had to get off the forklift and operate the bin dumper. We simplify this by giving the forklift operators a remote control that when within 50 feet of the bin dumper, will operate the machine so the driver can move on to other jobs rather than taking time to stop and operate the dumper. Big time saver, reduces safety hazards.

For 48 years we have been helping manufacturers automate their factory and improve production and maintenance. This video is just a small slice of the projects we have done over the years.