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Suction cups and the venturi effect

In 30 secondsWhen compressed air is forced through a narrowing, it speeds up and its pressure drops: this creates a vacuum in the suction cup, which holds the part. A vacuum without a pump.

Also available in: Català · Castellano

The venturi effect

When a fluid passes through a narrowing, it speeds up and its pressure drops. If you connect a suction cup at that point, the air inside is drawn out: a vacuum forms and the part sticks to it.

Advantage: you only need the compressed air you already have for the cylinders; no vacuum pump required.

Control

With a bistable solenoid valve there are two signals:

  • V1_ON: turns on the vacuum (picks up the part).
  • V1_OFF: turns it off (releases the part).

In the cell

  • V1 (Phase 1): on rotary arm B, it carries the part from the feeder to the sorting area.
  • V2 (Phase 2): on the removal manipulator, it picks the part up from the table and places it on conveyor 2 or in reject bin 2.
  • The warehouse X-Y manipulator also picks up parts with a suction cup.

Interactive demo

Related concepts

Actuators

Pneumatic cylinders and solenoid valves

Compressed air moves the cylinders; solenoid valves are the bridge to the PLC. A monostable valve springs back to rest on its own when it loses the signal; a bistable one needs a signal for each movement and remembers its last position.

Industrial automation

X-Y Cartesian manipulator and servomotors

Two perpendicular axes driven by servomotors with encoders. At start-up it finds the zero of each axis; then it converts coordinates in millimetres into pulses to reach each position exactly.