WHERE IT GOES WRONG
The cost shows up later
End-of-arm tooling gets specced last, after the robot is bought, so the cup is undersized for the acceleration, or the vacuum can't hold a porous part, or a mechanical gripper crushes a soft one. A gripper that fails one pick in a thousand sounds like 99.9% success, but on the floor it is a cell that stops and waits for an operator every half hour or so.
The part surface decides vacuum vs mechanical, and the cycle acceleration decides the size, and both get calculated up front.
HOW TO CHOOSE
Match the technology to the job
Match the gripper to the surface, then size it to the motion:
- Flat, smooth, or sealed surfaces: sheet, glass, boxes, molded parts → vacuum. The cup, the generator, and the vacuum level get sized to the part weight and the cycle acceleration rather than picked off a chart. Schmalz's cup library runs from bellows cups (the FSGA family) to flat cups, and a matrix area gripper (the FMG) switches on only the cups over the part so nothing leaks. (Schmalz.)
- Porous, uneven, or heavy parts a cup can't hold → a mechanical gripper: two-jaw parallel, three-jaw concentric, or angular, sized to the grip force and stroke the part needs. Zimmer's GPP5000 pneumatics run on a steel-in-steel guide rated to 30 million maintenance-free cycles, and the GEP electric families (about 10 million) add adjustable force and position feedback. (Zimmer.)
- Mixed part sizes on one gripper → an electric gripper that stops the jaws anywhere in the stroke and stores part recipes. Zimmer's IO-Link family 6000 (the GEH6000IL) holds up to 32 workpiece settings. (Zimmer.)
- Vacuum and mechanical on one cell → a quick-change setup: Zimmer's WPR5000 tool changer swaps end-of-arm tooling robot-side, passing air, power, and signal through one coupler. (Zimmer.)
- High cycle rate or fragile parts → the sizing math matters most here: too little vacuum drops the part, too much crushes it, and Schmalz sizes the whole vacuum circuit to the real acceleration.
- Vacuum generation: compressed-air ejector vs electric pump → decided by the number of picks and the energy cost. Schmalz's electric GCPi pump makes vacuum with no compressed air at all, and its FA-X area gripper claims up to 80% less energy from switchable ejector banks. (Schmalz.)
The fork is vacuum vs mechanical, set by the part surface. Schmalz leads for vacuum because that's what they specialize in and size correctly, and Zimmer leads for mechanical grippers and tool changers. If your part is a clean vacuum job we point you to the vacuum specialist; if it needs jaws we point you to the gripper line.
WHY M6
One source, sized to the application
The vacuum specialist won't spec you a mechanical gripper and the gripper vendor won't size your vacuum circuit. We carry both, so the tooling follows the part surface and the cycle, gets sized instead of guessed, and is supported across Washington, Oregon, Idaho and British Columbia when a cup wears or a cycle changes.
You leave with the gripper matched to your part surface and sized to your real cycle acceleration, so the cell stops faulting on the pick nobody calculated.
WHAT WE CARRY
The lines we rep for this application
- Schmalz: vacuum handling: suction cups (FSGA bellows to flat, the volume of what we sell), ejector and electric vacuum generators (the compressed-air-free GCPi pump), matrix and area grippers, and the sizing to match cup and circuit to your part and cycle.
- Zimmer Group: mechanical end-of-arm tooling from a single source: pneumatic and electric grippers on a steel-in-steel guide (family 5000 through the IO-Link family 6000), the HRC collaborative gripper, WPR5000 tool changers, and its own vacuum line.
Robotic assembly, packaging, machine tending, material handling
THE EQUIPMENT
What this looks like on the floor
THE COST OF WAITING
An automation project gets approved with two numbers
One is the equipment quote. The other is what doing this by hand costs you every month, and only you can add it up:
Labor on the task. Hours per shift, at your fully loaded rate.
The rate ceiling. What the manual step caps your throughput at.
Scrap and rework. What manual variation costs you per thousand parts.
Changeover. Time lost every time the part changes.
The hiring problem. Turnover, training, and the weeks the job sits open.
Exposure. Repetitive lift, pinch points, and what one recordable costs you.
We will get you the equipment number and a budget range early, so your request goes up with both.
COMMON QUESTIONS
Common questions
What areas do you support end-of-arm tooling in?
M6 Revolutions supplies both across Washington, Oregon, Idaho, British Columbia, and California: Schmalz as the vacuum specialist, Zimmer for mechanical grippers, tool changers, and one-source EOAT.
Vacuum or mechanical gripper for my part?
Read it off the part surface: vacuum for flat, smooth, or sealed parts; mechanical jaws for porous, uneven, or heavy ones. Sometimes the answer is both on one tool with a changer between them. The part decides, and we carry both technologies.
How do I size a vacuum cup and generator so it holds at full cycle speed?
The cycle's acceleration is the number most people skip: it multiplies the effective load on every cup. Cup count, cup type, vacuum level, and generator all get calculated from part weight, surface, and motion. We run Schmalz's sizing math on your real cycle, because undersized vacuum drops parts and oversized vacuum crushes them.
Can one robot switch between a vacuum head and a gripper?
Yes, with a tool changer: Zimmer's WPR5000 swaps end effectors robot-side, passing air and signal through the coupler, so one arm runs mixed jobs without manual tool swaps.