• Schmalz India Private Limited

Vacuum Gripper For Handling PV Components

The new vacuum gripper from Schmalz for handling highly sensitive wafer or solar cells has decisive advantages compared with manual grippers, mechanical grippers, conventional vacuum grippers or floating suction pads employing Bernoulli’s principle. Not every vacuum gripper is qualified for all process steps involved in handling photovoltaic components like gripping, moving, optical measurement, positioning, stacking and releasing. The latest technology for handling wafers and solar cells utilises conventional vacuum grippers or floating suction pads employing Bernoulli’s principle. However, these types of gripper both have considerable disadvantages: when using conventional vacuum grippers, chemical contamination and high mechanical strain occur at contact surfaces. Meanwhile, floating suction pads carry the disadvantages of a considerably lower cycle speed of t > 1 sec, of relatively imprecise positioning and uncontrolled blow-off of nuisance particles into the process room. The new Schmalz Wafer Gripper (SWG), is particularly suitable for the extremely fast, precise and damage-free handling of highly sensitive wafer and solar cells by eliminating disadvantages of previous handling concepts. This is available for common robot flange connections, including standard vacuum generation. Provision for customer requirements regarding loading conditions and distance measurement can be accommodated. The SWG suction pad geometries fit to the usual wafer sizes of 125 mm or 156 mm. It is available with contact surfaces made of PEEK or optional with foamed plastic surfaces. With its modular construction concerning integrated pneumatic vacuum generation with controlled extraction, blow-off function, robot interface, optional upgrading- and solar modules, it is the ideal solution for fully and semi automated photovoltaic cell production.