Protect Your Robotic Automation Investment with Pendant Armor
Manan Banerjee | June 15th, 2018
When buying any equipment with a control pendant, the thought of buying accessories to protect it may seem like an unnecessary expense. After all, if you’re careful not to drop it, it should be fine, right?
Let’s answer that question with another question - do most people put protective cases on their smartphones? After all, with modern high-strength glass screens and water resistance built into the phone, it should be more or less indestructible, right?
Most people would still be uncomfortable with leaving a smartphone “naked” during daily use. Reason being, even with the utmost care, unpredictable situations can still happen. I can personally relate; the last time I went case-free, two days later my phone jostled loose in my pocket and went hurtling face down onto my driveway as I was exiting my car, shattering the screen. In the case of more severe drops, it’s not a good feeling to ponder that a one-time $15 purchase could have saved not only the cost of a new phone, but the hassle of acquiring it, re-downloading apps, importing contacts, setting preferences, and all the other headaches we don’t often have to deal with.
Pendant Armor can save you $5,000
The thought process is similar with a teach pendant. A broken pendant not only requires the cost to replace it but the downtime associated with carrying out the repair. It is typical to think of it as cheap insurance that can be summed up in a simple ROI calculation. The table below summarizes the cost of protection vs. out-of-warranty replacement of a Universal Robots teach pendant. We’ll use optimistic figures for the replacement costs and downtime, and assume ideal scenarios on replacement availability and repair times.
*Note: Costs and figures given here are estimates only
As we can see, in the event that the pendant is dropped hard enough to cause damage, the protective case would have paid for itself about 22 times over. Cheap insurance, indeed.
Roboworld makes PendantArmor, tough and chemical-resistant protection for various pendants that protect against unpredictable impacts. Cross Company offers multiple levels of support packages that allow access to our stock of spare parts and priority shipping and service for out-of-warranty repairs.
Manan is a North Carolina native - born and raised in Cary, eventually moving to Charlotte in 2005 to attend college. He graduated from UNCC with dual degrees in Mechanical Engineering and Physics, later completing his MBA with Wake Forest University. While working for several years as a design engineer, Manan realized his affinity for robots and making processes more efficient. He joined Cross Company in 2017 as a Robotics Technical Specialist, where he uses robots to help people work more efficiently.
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