Need a robot to help operate your 3D printers? An Almond Bot can do that.
A new company, Almond AI, is marketing a robotic solution for manufacturing equipment automation. They offer a “robot as a service” that can perform inspection, pick & place functions, and automatically tend to machines — and that’s the function we’re most interested in seeing.
Automation of 3D printers has long been a goal of most 3D printer operators. That’s because the devices are almost universally built as standalone devices for single jobs. They aren’t like a paper printer, for example, that can accept a stream of jobs from an office and stack up the output for pickup. Imagine having to manually unload your workplace’s printer before being able to print — that’s largely the world of today’s 3D printing.
Unfortunately, we generally accept this constraint because that’s what we’re presented with: there really aren’t any popular continuously operating 3D printers, although some experiments have been undertaken.
Third-party solutions are usually the case for operations automation, with robotic arms being able to substitute for humans. Just as a human can press buttons, open doors, manage print plates, and more, so can a robot if suitably programmed.
It’s even possible to have a robot operate several adjacent 3D printers if they are within reach. This is the approach used by some low-volume production operations where 24/7 activities are required. The robotic solutions can dramatically lower the cost of labour required to run the equipment.
However, there’s a massive problem: robotic arms are quite pricey. This has effectively locked many operations out from proper automation solutions.
Enter Almond AI, who hope to solve the problem with a new approach: robot as a service. In this approach, you pay a subscription fee instead of buying a robot outright. This lowers the initial capital costs and allows more businesses to immediately start automating their 3D printer farm.
I took a look at Almond AI’s system, and it seems to be able to handle a wide range of operational functions. It can be programmed to open doors, remove print plates, and even retrieve items that have fallen off.
Their system includes an AI-powered adaptive vision system to provide input for positioning. They’ve trained the system on a range of typical operational issues, so the system is largely ready to go for use on existing 3D printers.
Almond Bot can also be used on almost any human-operated manufacturing device, and we’re told, for example, it can handle laser cutters and CNC machines as well as 3D printers.
This is quite an interesting approach and could be extremely valuable to small 3D print farms looking for ways to expand operations or make work more efficient.
Via Almond AI
