Looking for a base to support an industrial robot

    I am looking for a heavy and sturdy base to use to support an industrial robot (I am thinking something in the KUKA Quantec Line). The idea here is that the robot would not be mounted and limited to a single place in our shop and could be moved to different setups for different operations and programs. A forklift could simply move the entire platform on which the robot is mounted.

    Here is a linkto a video that is representative of my idea. In this case, it is an ABB robot.

    Does anyone know of a company that makes these platforms for industrial robots?

  • panic mode March 9, 2020 at 7:57 PM

    Approved the thread.

    Rekd - An extrusion base might be an OK solution for a small/low-speed collaborative robot, or something similar (although in my experience, they're not) - but I absolutely would not want to put an actual industrial robot on one, and expect it to do anything but cause problems and/or hurt someone.

    If you had a good experience with Vention, that's great - just keep in mind any extrusion manufacturer (of which there are a boatload) will provide exactly the same service. Reach out to your local automation supplier and see who they use - extrusion is a commodity, and everybody's got the same software tools (usually a CAD add-in) available to design it.

    therobotman - lots of robot manufacturers actually have 'standard' bases they'll sell along with their robots. Not the cheapest option, but pretty decent. One thing to keep in mind: almost every robot manufacturer is going to tell you that the robot needs to be anchored to the floor. Most of them have very, very specific requirements for how to do this. Fanuc will even tell you which anchors to use, how many, spacing, etc. This is why the base in the video you linked to is the size that it is - you need to make sure the center of gravity and moment loads of the fully loaded, moving-at-full-speed robot never get outside the footprint of the base, else you risk it tipping over. I would still be concerned about it sliding around. I've seen big six axis robots that weighed several thousand pounds sitting on bases that weigh even more than that rip anchors out of concrete floors when not properly anchored, or in one case, when the concrete was only a couple of inches thick (and no one cared enough to pay attention.)

    If you're doing anything really heavy and/or fast, then use a docking system of some sort. Either setting anchors/clamps/ball-locks in the floor, or bolting and unbolting your robot base from the machine it's working with. If done right, it really won't take any longer to move than if it wasn't anchored.

    I don't know of a standard solution for this, as it's not the typical application for industrial robots. If you have the footprint to be able to do it, and want to pursue a custom solution, feel free to reach out.

    You might consider a trick we used years ago for trade shows. We fabricated a steel box, maybe 5 ft x 5 ft x 1 ft. Bottom plate + four sides. On the underside were added channels for fork lift forks. Inside the box were added four mounting bosses with tapped holes. On top of the box was a 3/4-inch thick tooling plate secured to the internal mounting bosses. The box was filled with landscaping crushed rock for ballast. It weighed a million pounds. But we mounted large, fast robots on it used to do a lot of flashy zip & spin high-inertia moves for the trade show audience. I do not recall that beast ever moved a hair.

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