• Datum: 2020-03-14 15:38:30
• Firma: FH Aachen
• Ansprechpartner: Frau Jessica Ulmer
• E-Mail: ulmer@fh-aachen.de
• Anschrift: Goethestrasse 1, Aachen
• Telefon/Fax: 49 (0)241 6009 52512 /
• Land: Deutschland

To provide its student with the latest technology available, FH Aachen is building an Industry 4.0 Model Factory aiming to demonstrate the work and process flow of an Industry 4.0. Currently, several stations are designed and constructed to produce E-Longboard. The idea is that the customer will put his/her order in the Web-Shop of FH Aachen and the order will be processed directly in the plant. One of the stations is the laser engraving station where the E-Longboard will be engraved with QR-Code to provide each E-Longboard with a unique ID that will be stored in the database. Moreover, the customer also has the opportunity to request a certain picture, word or any design to be engraved on the E-Longboard, providing a customizable E-Longboard for each customer.

Since the surface of the E-Longboard is not even, the distance between the laser module and the surface of the E-Longboard has to be maintained to ensure a sharp image and a consistent result. For this reason, a 3-axis gantry system is designed in which the laser module will be attached on the Z-axis and moves with respect to its distance to the surface of the E-Longboard.
A prototype of the system has been built which consist of a simple 2 axis gantry system and a separate Z-axis controlled by microcontroller. The prototype is working fine and is able to engrave some pictures on a wooden plate. However, the working area is not big enough to fit in even one E-Longboard and the gantry system is not robust and stable enough because there is a lot of ΓÇ£playΓÇ¥ or backlash which reduce the efficiency of the system.

A cloud service will be used to monitor the overall process and order flow. This will ensure that all data from the plant is stored in the database and well documented. To optimize the manufacturing time, the final design of the machine is constructed to accommodate and process two E-Longboards in one run. Hence, a larger working area, i.e. a bigger gantry system is required. For this purpose, the gantry system from igus® has been of great help since the size of the working are can be customizable to the need so that the size of the overall machine is just as needed and not to large. The plastic bearing of the drylin® ensure a less friction and smooth movement of the linear system. The assembly of the parts are also done quite straight forward without encountering any problems.