E-Powertrain Inverter cleaning machine

As part of an inverter assembly line, Sonplas developed a fully automatic, laser-assisted cleaning station. The modularly designed machine cleans the heat sink surfaces of inverter assemblies to prepare them for downstream bonding processes. The machine consists of a parts handling and the laser for cleaning. The laser chamber is connected to an external extraction system. This extracts the dust arising from the cleaning process. The parts handling system consists of a rotary table with two rotating cavities and a separate transfer handling system. The transfer handling system removes the heat sinks with a gripper from the work-piece carrier and inserts it into the corresponding cavity in the rotary table. The rotary table cavities rotate the components in the laser cleaning station so that the laser can clean both sides. In the process, sensors check the height of the components in each case to rule out damage. After laser cleaning, the transfer handling system removes the cleaned heat sink from the rotary table and places it back into a workpiece carrier. A manual workstation integrated elsewhere supplies the entire system with the individual parts, which are transported from station to station in workpiece carriers. By means of DMC and barcode recognition, continuous traceability is also ensured. An ECO mode implemented across the entire system saves additional energy. Furthermore, the entire assembly line or this cleaning stand can be modified for inverter types of other specifications with little effort.