Farason Corporation Application

Spotlight: Quick Change Mount Plate

Industry
Packaging
Application
Machinery Custom
Production End-of-
Printer
Arm Tooling X7™
Materials
Onyx® and Continuous Carbon Fiber

For over thirty years, Farason Corporation has designed and delivered custom automation and robotics systems to manufacturers, shipping over 900 machines to

The Challenge According to the Farason team, custom EOAT was needed, but
conventional (Delrin custom milled parts) are a poor solution:
Given that the packaged goods (filled
Quick Change Mount Plate printed in Onyx® and Continuous
shampoo bottles) to be moved were heavy, Carbon Fiber
• The parts are costly, and may still be too heavy for
irregular in shape, and moving quickly down high cycle rates.
the line, conventional off- the-shelf packaging
solutions rated for the lift transfer weighed too • Performance optimized EOAT requires several
much for the payload limits for the robot, costly milling setups to deliver features along
preventing the target cycle rate and move multiple axes, resulting in higher costs and longer
distances. lead times when produced out of house.

With a large product mix, removing and

• Further weight reduction stages can improve
replacing a single-product solution for each
lightweighting, but can overwork a part, increasing
changeover would negatively impact the the risk of scrap, and introducing additional delays.
production schedule, and fail to scale
affordably to suit changes in available robots • Producing one-off custom EOAT doesn’t scale well for
and packages conveyed. changes in automation platforms and product
packaging.
The Solution
Richard Cook, R&D Support Engineer for
Farason, leveraged the capabilities of
industrial 3D printing in combination with other
machine components to create a custom quick
change mount plate and receiver plate system.
These hybrid parts reduced the size, weight, and
part count of a conventional vacuum gripper
end-of-arm tooling quick change system, while
also incorporating trusted gripper components.
Richard Cook highlighted that the resulting
lightweighted EOAT solution, not only achieved
an 80 pieces-per-minute cycling rate, including
long moves of over 26 inches, but this
production-capable solution allowed for toolless “I know if the customer
changeovers when swapping between the needs another part in a
product- facing receiver plates.
year, we will be able to
Christian Weder, Design Support Engineer, fills produce it.
a key capacity supporting the 3D printed part
design and fabrication with the Markforged
The printed part is
equipment at Farason. He said, “choosing 3D going to fit, it’s not
printing as the basis for this tool was really
nice, and allowed us to incorporate machine
going to be a different
parts while really cutting down the amount of strength or surface
aluminum. Keeping this tool light is super finish, or other
important because of how fast we’re moving.”
Christian Weder went on to note that an
elements
alternative part made from machined Delrin that might be a
would be unlikely to achieve the same robotic
payload target weight, and efforts to further
challenge for the
remove extraneous material and add features customer.”
puts a milled part at risk for scrapping,
— Richard Cook,
dramatically increasing the time to deliver to R&D Support Engineer, Farason Corporation
the customer.

Quick Change Mount Plate printed in Onyx® and Continuous Carb

Farason Corporation uses a Markforged X7™
options to their customers, even after
industrial printer to produce the parts in
delivering and installing the quick change
Markforged Onyx®, with additional continuous
mount plate.
carbon fiber to reinforce where appropriate for a
part suited to lengthy deployments and multiple
Richard Cook points to other benefits of
changeover cycles. They needed Markforged to
including 3D printing in this design: on-part
deliver the complex part geometry in a suitably
text, snap clamps for the articulating lock
strong material, incorporating routing and
barrels, a one-way-only tab, and a depression
mounting features necessary for adding the
for the color swatch for the product receiver
non-printed components into the CAD design.
label. These extra elements aid with the
This eliminates the many milling setups
toolless changeover process, and are achieved
involved in cutting features in multiple-axes
without increasing weight. “3D printing, “
using conventional tooling. Next, they were able
Richard says, “kept us within the robot payload
to incorporate simple metal parts such as
and inertia limits, because that thing was flat
washer and nut plates and the vacuum gripper
out flying.”
components right into the assembly to produce
a reinforced, functional tool without exceeding
But according to Richard Cook, the most
the weight requirements.
important factor to the Farason team regarding
their commitment to Markforged equipment
By forgoing costly one-off conventional
comes down to a single word: Consistency. “I
fabrication routes, the Farason team were
know if the customer calls in a year and needs
able to scale their solution to meet evolving
another one,” Richard says, “I’ll be able to
needs. After confirming and testing their design,
produce it. The printed part is going to fit, and
they were able to then deploy the solution to
it’s not going to be a different strength or have
four robots, adding a series of product-
a different surface finish, or
matched receiver plates. Using 3D printing for
other elements that might be a challenge for the
the receiving plates as well made it possible to
customer. It’s going to be the same by all
add further
reasonable measures.”

Markforged Advantages
The Farason team reported that the Markforged solution is 25% of the costs of their conventional CNC milling approach.

Parts reduction: streamlines the number of machine components needed by incorporating mounting solutions into a 3D printed compon

Lighter and more performative 3D printed EOAT can achieve more cycles.

Produce in hours instead of weeks; create multiples as needed.

Reduce inventory costs by printing on demand.

© Copyright Markforged 2024. Markforged, Inc., Waltham, MA 02451 USA, the Markforged name and logo are registered trademarks of Markforged Inc., in several jurisdictions worldwide. As noticed, other product
names may be trademarks of Markforged Inc. A current list of trademarks for Markforged, its subsidiaries or affiliates is available upon request to [email protected]. This document is current as of the initial
date of publication and may be amended by Markforged at any time. Not all offerings are available in every country in which Markforged operates. The case studies, performance data, and client examples cited are
presented for illustrative purposes only. Actual performance results may vary depending on specific configurations and operating conditions. THE INFORMATION IN THIS DOCUMENT IS PROVIDED “AS IS” WITHOUT ANY
WARRANTY, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING WITHOUT ANY WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A
PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND ANY WARRANTY OR CONDITION OF NON-INFRINGEMENT. Markforged products are warranted according to the terms and conditions of the agreements under which they are provided.