I’m having trouble with the teaching function using the ISWAP, especially with HIS boards.
Every time the ISWAP places the board on the HIS, the right-hand fingers seem to catch on the board and don’t move as far apart. The board is therefore slightly misaligned, and either it falls off or the right-hand fingers catch on the cover.
I’ve tried several teaching sessions and even shifted the position in 0.2mm increments because the Hamilton application engineer told me I’m not centered properly. Despite this, the same problem persists: the right-hand fingers seem to catch on the board. Placing the board on the HIS involves a complex movement.
I can’t embed the video, so I’ve attached some photos of what’s happening. In photo 2, the bottom fingers pull the plate along, then release it in photo 3.
I’m really stuck, so any help would be greatly appreciated.
Would you be able to give some detail on what you mean by “In photo 2, the bottom fingers pull the plate along, then release it in photo 3.”?
When you do a complex movement, the complex movement involves an insert depth as well as a movement in z, nothing more. So think of it like a hotel: you need to know your inserting height, your inserting depth, and then your final z movement to place the plate (with or without a lid) on the target locator. In all cases in VENUS, you are permitted an opening width on the place plate command - this is because your opening width may need to take into consideration a lid of greater width than the plate. But overall, the movement to place a plate is:
position the plate above all collision risks
move an insert depth (one direction, planar to the ground)
move in z to touch the locator
release the plate
move the iswap back up in z
move out the equal insert depth as before
And the reverse happens on the pickup of the plate.
It really does look like you are off-center. When an iswap grips and releases a plate, you should expect the left and right grips to move equal distances to and from making contact with a plate. Via your images and when placing a plate, the iswap should briefly pause at a position to the left of the images, move to the right to directly over the locator, move into the page to the locator, and release the plate with the grips on the top and the bottom moving equal distances north and south to clear everything in the path. The iswap will then move out of the page, and then back to the left to the original pause position, and then carry on. Is your system not exhibiting this behavior? If so, feel free to provide any details.
As far as I am aware press-on distance has never been a feature of any iSwap command, but it is for CO-RE Grip transports. You can force a press-on distance with the iSwap by virtually shifting the plate sequence down prior to the iSwap place plate command, placing the plate, and then shifting the sequence back up though. But with how delicate the HIS fork is I am not sure a press-on distance would assist with this.
Thank you for clarifying that the fingers on the iSwap seem to be stuck on the plate forcing the drag to occur. This definitely does not sound like normal behavior. So we should explore what could be causing this sticking. Is there some sort of residue left on the iSwap fingers or the problematic side of the plate prior to transport to the HIS? Is the plate material weakened such that the force of the grip permits the fingers to dig into and slightly weld to the side of the plate? Looking at your photos, the four metal prongs on the iSwap in appear to be in good shape.
So I had the same experience with this issue but with Hamilton Comfort lids. What I found was that even though I taught the destination correctly it had some bias on one of the fingers.
What I found that worked was that when I was teaching the destination position, I needed to use a wide open grip width (I used 89mm) so that when it picked up the labware it would be “centered” in the gripper. Then when I taught the destination it was centered. I also used the same pick up settings from teaching to the iswap pickup settings in the method. Wide open grip width etc.
Oh cool, thanks for sharing your settings, and the labware you are using.
So if you are trying to move a plate with a lid you should have a labware definition of the plate and lid together, and on your deck layout at your source and destination. When transporting a plate and lid together, you want to set the transport mode to plate and lid. I don’t recall if this is a special mode, but I used it when moving plates with lids around with success. It may take into account that there’s a lid and move the grippers wider when placing the plate +lid.
When you say that mounting on the HIS is fragile what do you mean? Is the iSWAP making contact with the lid?
Looking at your photos it looks like the iSWAP and the HIS shuttle aren’t perfectly parallel/aligned. Image 3,4. You may want to check the alignment of the iSWAP, and how the HIS is set on the baseplate. I’m not familiar with the HIS and its baseplate, but maybe a quick fix is to align the HIS to the iSWAP. I did this before with the KUBE. I had the iSWAP hold a plate above the KUBE shuttle and then moved the KUBE so that the KUBE shuttle was in alignment with the iSWAP and then locked the KUBE back down to the baseplate.
Just a weird thing here, have you tried adjusting the grip strength?
I had issues (the usual) when I had to transport comfortlids from an external position to the other side of the system. Sometimes it would work great, but most of the times I would grab a plate with it, or a second comfortlid. The teaching was spot-on. When I lowered the grip strength by 2 steps. All my issues were gone and I had great transports.
