Background

As an engineering intern at Minnesota Wire, I was tasked with improving productivity by redesigning the feeding mechanism for 13mm conducting discs on an automated assembly line. The discs need to be transferred from cylindrical cartridges to a welding nest in order to be sonic welded to a wire lead.

Design

I developed a robust design that utilizes a sliding mechanism to move the discs from the loaded cylindrical cartridge to the welding nest. Features such as a crossed-roller slide, mechanical stops, and an adjustable air cylinder provided the precise motion needed to accurately and reliably place the discs in the nest for welding.

Implementation

Production speed increased from 700/hour to 1000/hour.

Defect rate decreased from 15% to 5%.

These two factors combined resulted in a 60% increase in production rate.

The video below shows the feeding mechanism installed on a manual sonic welder: