jschafer@purch.Columbia.NCR.COM (01/28/91)
Please bear with me. I am a neophyte when it comes to post-
ing news.
I have the distinct priviledge of finding a home for two wire
guided AGV's and a zoned AGV accumulating conveyor system
that are no longer used in our facility. I am writing this
in hopes one of you will help me find a home for these guys
(nicknamed Thunderbolt & Lightfoot).
1. maybe you are interested in buying them yourself
2. maybe you know of someone who might like to buy them
3. do you at least have any suggestions on where is the
best place to advertize these for sale and how I
should determine what they are worth?
They were purchased from Modular Automation Corporation in
November 1988 to be used in an elaborate material handling
system in our computer manufacturing facility. The hour
meters on both units indicate they have been operational for
about 13,400 hours. I'm sure the hour meters have been run-
ning 24 hours a day because 13,400 hours/24 hours per day =
558 days. That's about how long the units were in use here.
But the units were only used one shift per day and even then
on a sporadic basis. Unfortunately, they were planned to be
used in a high volume scenario that never came to be :(
The units have a short section of powered conveyor on the
front and a clamping mechanism which gently grasps the com-
puter in transit. They are capable of automatically being
summoned to the appropriate conveyor line, properly aligning
themselves to match up with the conveyor, transporting the
computer, lining up and depositing the computer on another
line and then returning to a recharge station to auto-
matically plug themselves in. The original project intended
to use the AGV's to automatically sort units by freight car-
rier, automatically consolidate multiple unit orders, and
distribute the finished units to multiple staging areas. But
all we ever used them for was to take a unit from one line to
another about 15 feet away.
The units have a redundant safety system - some sort of vi-
sion system which prevents them from running into obstacles
or people and also a bumper which protrudes from the front of
the unit that instantaneously shuts the unit down if it en-
counters anything.
We have a lot of money invested in this system. But I will
take whatever I can get for them.
If possible, please e-mail responses to me.
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John Schafer jschafer@purch.Columbia.NCR.COM
NCR E&M-Columbia
West Columbia, SC ph 803-791-6588 FAX 803-791-6588
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