Development of an electromechanical vacuum switch

Sammanfattning: Pneumatic vacuum systems are today used in automated manufacturing and packaging industries. Before an automated system is allowed to lift an object the control system has to get a good to go signal that informs that the desired vacuum level is reached in the gripper and that it is able to lift the object. The device sending this signal is called a vacuum switch. To reduce the energy consumption of the system the vacuum switch should also send a signal to the energy saving system. The work is conducted for Piab AB in Täby in Sweden. The purpose of this master thesis was to dimension and design a new electromechanical vacuum switch that is able to send a signal from two vacuum levels. The two levels should be adjustable but also dependent of each other to make the switch more reliable. The work resulted in an electromechanical vacuum switch with two dependent and adjustable signals. The switch met 13 of the 15 tested requirements. One of the requirements it failed to meet was the height requirement and the other was a performance parameter which it marginally failed. Further more, all requirements could not be verified. A full verification will have to be done with a later prototype. More work has to be done on the switch before it meets all the requirements and functions as desired, but the purpose can be considered fulfilled since all the basic functions are working as desired.