Meca500-OBS Robot is Changing the Game in Optics Manufacturing

June 17, 2024

Mecademic's Meca500-OBS is a micro-automation robot that features a unique optical black surface treatment that absorbs up to 96.5% of light, reducing reflection and enhancing safety in sensitive manufacturing environments.

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Mecademic

The Meca500-OBS is a micro-automation robot that features a unique black surface that absorbs up to 96.5% of light to reduce reflection and enhance safety in sensitive manufacturing environments.

Engineered to tackle challenges in optics manufacturing or AI vision systems, where light reflection can lead to measurement inaccuracies and safety hazards, its black surface minimizes these issues to enable faster production load times.

The robot provides repeatability of 0.005 mm and enables active alignment with increments of 0.001 mm. The compact size and flexibility in mounting orientation allow easy integration into tight spaces to assemble optical elements for products such as lasers and cameras. The robot base can be mounted directly on metric optical breadboards and offers stable positioning with minimal vibration characteristics comparable to high-precision stages.

Digital Manufacturing Ireland (DMI), an organization focused on adopting high-impact technologies for manufacturers, was one of the beta testers. Tommy Brennan, Lead Machine Vision Specialist at DMI, shared, "We had an opportunity to beta-test the new black anodized 6-axis robot from Mecademic and found it positively impacted manufacturing use cases. For example, the Mecademic robot could come much closer to the product being inspected without affecting its illumination, allowing for faster load time in production."

Features:

0.005 mm repeatability
Controller is embedded into the base
Hardware and software agnostic
Can be mounted in any orientation
Consumes around 30 W
Precision machined aluminum
96.5% light absorption reduces measurement errors from light reflection
Provides a safe working environment
Simplifies test procedures and automation processes
Total Hemispherical reflectance (THR) @550 nm is 3.5%
Communication protocols: EtherCAT, EtherNet/IP, Profinet, TCP Socket
Programming Languages: C++, C#, LabView, Python, and more
Available PLC packages: Allen-Bradley, Omron, Siemens, Schneider Electric, Beckhoff, and more.