Pin Insertion Gear Makes Difficult Assembly a Breeze

Application Spotlight

An injection molding company began a value-add for their automotive manufacturing customer.  They had operators manually pre-installing barbed darts into an A-pillar wiring harness guide.  There were two sizes, an M6 x 20mm and an M8 x 20mm pin, each with a discrete location requirement.

Operators were strained ergonomically handling and pushing the pins through the material.  Part quality became an issue due to incorrect pin sizes being placed in the wrong location.  With a high defect rate and a dramatic increase in production volumes, their manufacturing engineers reached out to Visumatic for options.

Since the material had a significant amount of hysteresis, a multi-point part fixture was created to reduce operator manipulation and properly back each location for consistent insertion depth.  By using a pair of fixed centerline VIM-700 insertion spindles, both the large and small pins could be seated simultaneous further speeding assembly.  In addition to reaching the full proper depth each drive, the machine eliminated the costly rework by ensuring the correct pin was installed in the proper hole.

An independent feeder for each size dart quickly fed one of each per cycle to the tooling tip, saving the operator from manually manipulating each pin.  The machine performed 100% of the insertion force, eliminating that strain too.

Utilizing this configuration, production capacity was tripled at this workstation using only one operator.  The improved quality assurance system helped this customer secure and retain additional business.

See the full range of automatic pin insertion equipment options on Visumatic’s website today.

Small & Large barbed darts inserted.

Automatic pin insertion assembly machine.