Case Study #155: Bucket Lifting (5-Gallon Buckets)

Problem: Different sized steel and plastic buckets are manually picked from a 34″ high conveyor and placed onto a 5″ high pallet on the floor and then stacked three high. End-user would like to safely and securely handle three buckets at the same time to reduce repetitive motion stresses and increase productivity.

Application: Pick up five gallon buckets of paint from a conveyor and place/stack them on a pallet three tiers high.

Solution: Articulated Jib Boom (AJB-60) with 100″ maximum reach and a pneumatic balancer; reeved to increase lifting capacity and 40″ of lift. Special vacuum plate end-effector with three vacuum generators and a closed cell foam seal to handle three steel or plastic buckets at the same time. Two locating fixtures allow quick and proper positioning of the vacuum plate over the three buckets to be handled.