Lifting assistance devices need not have a computer. Although computer-controlled intelligent assist devices continue to evolve (see p. 25 for a new design), so do those actuated only by air pressure.
Italian IAD manufacturer Dalmec has launched a pneumatic wire rope balancer with lifting capacity up to 100kg that does not require pre-lifting adjustment. Maximum radius is 3m. The device, intended for helping workers lift loads that vary in weight, compensates automatically for almost all of the weight of the load, without users having to pre-set the amount of assistance required.
Electronic balancers have been able to do this for some time, by using a microprocessor to analyse data from a strain gauge, said Davide Rabozzi, sales manager of Dalmec Milan distributor Zeta Quattro. But this device uses a very sensitive regulator, Rabozzi explained, that responds to the effort required in the fraction of a second a user attempts to move the load, and then assists the lifting.
Dalmec has sold several since the device went on the market earlier this year.
At an Italian show in late May, Manibo Industrial Manipulators presented a range of balancers and manipulators that began serial production this year. Its new range of rope balancers has a lifting capacity of 75kg. Its range of pneumatic arm manipulators has a capacity up to 600kg, and has a work radius up to 3.2m. The company claims its machines are the only ones on the market equipped with an hydraulic safety device to protect the operator against accidental load release.
The company was formed in 2002 when Italian industrial equipment manufacturer Air.On changed direction and started to focus on passenger elevators. Three Air-on employees, Celso Ventura, Daniele Taiar and Paolo Passarini, left to start up Manibo. Since start-up, the company has produced about 100 machines. “We have increased our production a lot this year,” Passarini says.
Manibo UK distributor I.S. Limited recently supplied a pneumatic lifting device to a UK car maker that makes 20 cars a day. The device help lift 25kg heater assemblies from pallets and position them in the car’s dashboard until they can be bolted in place. Total reach is 4m. The machine uses a vacuum suction pad to grip the assemblies.
The device has been pre-programmed with the weight of the assemblies, so that it automatically provides lift to make the assemblies feel weightless. Two buttons – one on a control panel, another near the lifting arm’s handle – must be pressed in order to release the load. A vacuum reservoir holds the load for 20 minutes if pneumatic pressure were to drop.
In the same order, I.S. supplied a lifting arm for a 20kg spare wheel, which included an articulation point that tilts the wheel by 40°.
Fixing heavy loads inside a covered space – such as a car – poses constraints for materials handling equipment, says Steven Higgins, I.S. Limited business development manager. “You need something to take the torque, the overturning moment as you insert a heater. A chain hoist couldn’t do it, because it needs to be directly above the load. That’s where manipulators are particularly useful – where you can’t get above the load.”
