Automated Shaft Tip Preparation

Project Goal: To automate the process of preparing golf shaft tips for club assembly through the use of robotics and complementary equipment.

Sandblasting golf shaft tips in a high-volume manufacturing industrial environment is a menial task that could be improved and made less expensive through automation. Currently, shaft tip preparation involves a person unloading boxes of 50 shafts, inserting them into an automatic sandblaster and putting them back into boxes. This is time-consuming, tedious and costly.

To automate this process, the team implemented an integrated KUKA robot arm and mechanical shaft dispenser, which operate in tandem through EtherCAT technology. The robot arm is equipped with a custom shaft gripping mechanism that operates robotic fingers. A microcontroller and sensors operate the motor-driven shaft dispenser, which employs a linear actuator to push shafts of different lengths into an optimal pick-up position. A user operates the system’s program with the KUKA Robot Language on a teach pendant. Two industrial grade t-slot aluminum extrusion carts are used to mount the robot arm and shaft dispenser, as well as house the controllers for both units.

The Automated Shaft Tip Preparation project team created a fully functional system that requires minimal user interaction and optimizes the shaft preparation process so that it is consistent, efficient and a positive return on investment.