Video: Robot Feeds in, Twists and Bends Pipes Simultaneously.

WorldWide Tech & Science. Francisco De Jesùs.

Robot Feeds in, Twists and Bends Pipes Simultaneously

Opton's T-WIN20 KDM is a robot bender that can feed in, twist, and bend pipes simultaneously. This product has received a top award from the Small and Medium Enterprise Agency. By computer-controlling two of these benders at once, work can be done twice as fast as with ordinary benders.

"With conventional benders, a person inserts each pipe, and takes it out after it's been bent. But this robot bender feeds the pipe in, bends it, and outputs it. In other words, it does everything without human assistance. If the user decides where the materials should be output, the robot will do the job for over 20 hours. That means fewer people are needed. Also, regarding the processing speed, if the first bend is done when the pipe goes in, and the last bend is done when the pipe comes out, the first and last bends are done faster than with conventional benders."

With conventional benders, it is necessary to swing the processed items round. But the T-WIN20 robot bender moves itself, so it can always do processing in the same spot, without swinging materials. This also makes it possible to process pipes with parts attached, which was considered difficult with conventional benders.

"With an ordinary bender, the pipe is fed in, twisted, and bent. When there's a part there, the T-WIN20 can take its hand off the pipe, grip the pipe again, then bend it. So the robot bender can even bend pipes that have parts attached."

The T-WIN20 KDM is priced at 15,500,000 yen in Japan, about $194,000. Opton, which currently has offices in Japan, the US, and Germany, plans to step up its sales in overseas markets as well as in Japan.