Same arm - different brand

[Ztek]

I was looking for a six axis adept robot today and saw that their Viper S650 looks alot like the denso VS-G robots or KUKA KR5 sixx. Is it the same robot? If it is, which one of the companys is the orginal supplier of the arm? I dont think it is adept, becouse I have seen a lot of other robots with there logo on before.

Do you know any other manufacturers that share the same arm but sell them with there own controller? What modells?

[Torkens]

Comau NH3 and Staubli RX260. Staubli use Comau arm adding their own logo and controller.

[TygerDawg]

yes, is a DENSO arm.  They sell to a variety of companies.

[Robo Guru]

I think this is somewhat of a common practice.... years ago Motoman and Denso shared robot arms

Denso supplied Motoman with a scara while Motoman supplied Denso with a smaller arm (3kg i think)

[Juggernaut]

This is very common because of high R&D costs. 

Staubli. All really big RX models are Comau
Kuka:  all small 6 axis and scara are Denso. They have also been selling what used to be a CRS arm for special human environment apps.
Adept:  all 6 axis are denso.
Motoman:  all scara are denso
Epson:  I believe they used a Motoman design for the six axis.

It's easy to tell these things if you sell into the robotics industry.  It's hard to hide a robot design that is familiar and knowing how easy it is to adapt modern control hardware to various robots.

Generally not a big deal. But I would ask the questions related to end of life. A mfg. has less control when buying from a third party.

[Robotter]

OTC and Nachi share an equation too:

all arc welding robots (lower payloads) are from OTC and Spot welding robots (higher payloads) are nachi

[Jim C]

Some more information on Staubli arms.

The Staubli RX260 and RX270 are Comau arms. The RX250 we sold several years ago was a Kuka. The all ran on special versions of our controllers. The new TX200 on the other hand is a Staubli design.

We also purchased the SR4+, SR6+, SR8+ designs from Bosch when they got out of the robot business. We made some changes so they run on our standard CS8C controller and rebranded them RS40, RS60, and RS80. They will at some point be replaced by the new Staubli design TS40, TS60, and TS80.

[TygerDawg]

Clearly the robotics industry is an incestuous little orgy of arm-swappers.  No wonder I feel so dirty & vilolated. 

[TygerDawg]

And can't spell worth a hoot, either: "violated"

[Juggernaut]

The Kuka / Staubli arm is a great example of when this type of partnership fails. Clearly, these are competitors today and that meant bye bye partnership. Most of these partnerships are one way agreements.  They are not setup to be a win-win scenario right out of the gate.  Fortunately, some actually end up working for the long term.