Consumer Battery Assembly - Ni-Cad and Ni-MH Batteries
DMW Automation engineers and staff personnel designed and built new assembly lines to automate the manufacturing of a new generation of rechargeable batteries.
Overview
- Location: Europe
- Industry: Consumer
- Products/Services: Rechargeable Battery Assembly
- Primary SIC Code: 3272
- Annual Sales: Unknown
- Technology: Inline and Rotary Indexing
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| Ni-Cad battery assembly line. |
Situation
DMW Automation was approached by one of its existing customers who manufactures consumer alkaline batteries and was asked to design and build automated Ni-Cad, and later Ni-MH, rechargeable-battery winding and assembly production equipment.
This customer had existing equipment that did not fully meet their specifications. As a result of the previous successes this customer had experienced working with DMW Automation, they requested that DMW develop and provide an improved assembly solution.
Action
DMW Automation personnel traveled to the customer facility to evaluate and examine the equipment. Our engineers designed a new solution and, in order to do so, we first prototyped the battery winding process.
Our solution combined multiple winding machines and indexing assembly lines that were required to assemble a variety of battery sizes such as AA, 4/5 A, C, D, etc. These lines are capable of winding batteries between 15 and 55 parts per minute, and assembling batteries at 60 parts per minute.
Typical operations performed by these lines include:
- Electrode feeding and winding
- Insulator disc punching and placement
- Part feeding and orienting
- Electrode tab orienting and cap welding
- Positive displacement dispensing of sealant and electrolyte
- Various can closing techniques (i.e. straight crimp, spin crimp)
- Electrical and visual tests, and
- Product conveyance using puck carriers on the smaller size batteries
After fabrication and assembly, we conducted Factory Acceptance Testing (FAT) with the customer present and received their approval to ship the equipment. We shipped the equipment and installed the assembly lines for all the battery sizes (over 15 different pieces of equipment) on site in multiple steps over one year’s time.
Results
DMW Automation assisted the customer in starting a brand new manufacturing facility by supplying the majority of the assembly equipment as well as knowledgeable personnel during the complete start-up phase. Some of the winding equipment output speed was increased by as much as 20% during the first 6 months of production.
For more information about DMW Automation’s custom automation equipment and systems services, please call us at 847-437-0665 or email us at sales@dmwautomation.com.
