Robotic layup
SML-A6 Robotic Layup — It Places the String, It Doesn't Make It
≥6 s per string
One sweep of the ring = one string laid · the layup cadence
Every other machine on this line changes the cell. The SML-A6 changes nothing — it lifts a finished string and sets it on the glass exactly where the module geometry says it goes, then meets your line at its own two heights.
Strings in → laid on glass by geometry, one every ≥6 s
Where it sits
Where Layup Sits in the Line
This machine neither cuts a cell nor solders one — it carries. On the module line it is the layup station, where two feeds meet: strings from the stringer, glass from the loader.
Finished strings arrive short-edge from the stringer; glass feeds in from the loader; the laid-up sheet leaves long-edge to bussing. The station is defined by those three handshakes, not by a process it runs on the cell.
Settle the upstream handshakes early
The SML-A6 expects strings that are already welded and square. If your stringer hands off strings that bow or arrive at the wrong height, the seam between stringer and layup is the place to watch — not the machine itself. Anything before stringing or after bussing belongs to other machines, and each has its own page here.
Who it's for
Who This Machine Is For
A layup robot is not a general pick-and-place arm. This split isn't a ranking — it's what the SML-A6 was built to carry and align, so you can tell in three seconds whether it belongs in your line.
Built for this machine
- Placing welded strings onto glass — it moves and aligns finished strings; it does not weld, scribe or cut them.
- Modules 1650–2500 mm long, 990–1450 mm wide — the layup window covers full-size crystalline-silicon modules.
- String pitch 1–10 mm — the gap between laid strings is set within that band to your module design.
- A line with fixed hand-off heights — its value is meeting your stringer and glass loader, not raw speed.
Not this machine — where to go
- Making the string in the first place — welding cells into a string is the stringer's job; three of them sit on this site.
- Bussing or testing the module — joining strings with bus ribbon, then EL and IV, are stations downstream of layup.
The SML-A6 is the transport-and-alignment specialist between two welding-and-joining neighbours — it earns its place by fitting cleanly between them, not by out-running them. To see the three stringers that feed it, line them up on the tabber-stringer page →
Full spec
Full Specification
These are the numbers your layout engineer checks the machine against — the reach, the placement window, and the two docking heights it has to meet.
The SML-A6 earns its place on placement and fit rather than speed, so read the precision and interface rows first, then work down against the module drawing you'll sign for.
| Parameter | Value |
|---|---|
| Module | |
| Compatible module size | length 1650–2500 mm; width 990–1450 mm |
| Cell-string pitch | 1–10 mm |
| Cadence | |
| String takt | ≥6 s/string |
| Utilization | ≥95% |
| Precision | |
| Layup accuracy | ±0.5 mm |
| Cell-string positioning accuracy | ±0.5 mm |
| Positioning system | CCD |
| Handling & interface | |
| In-feed / out-feed | in-feed short edge; out-feed long edge |
| Docking height to stringer | 1230 mm |
| Glass in/out height | 950±50 mm |
| Power & utilities | |
| Power | 6 kW |
| Supply | single-phase three-wire; feed 3×6 mm² |
| Air | φ12 fitting; ≥400 L/min; 0.6–0.8 MPa |
| Safety, environment & weight | |
| Guarding | fitted with access control or fencing |
| Environment | 5–40 °C; humidity 5–70% |
| Weight | approx. 3 t |
CCD in-feed camera
Stringer docking interface
The 1230 mm handshake
Why One Height Value Gets Its Own Section
Layup is an interface machine, and the 1230 mm docking height is its physical handshake — the height at which a finished string leaves the stringer and is taken by the robot. It reads like a footnote. It is the opposite of one.
Here is what happens when it is treated as a footnote. Your stringer hands strings off at whatever height it was built to, and the SML-A6 takes them at 1230 mm. If those two heights do not agree, nobody finds out on paper — they find out on the floor, when the string has to be lifted or dropped across the gap between the two machines.
The fix is a transition table welded in on site to bridge the mismatch: a piece of steel that was in nobody's quote, that eats floor length you had already laid out, and that holds up commissioning while it is measured, built and levelled. It is the classic unbudgeted cost — small on a drawing, real on a schedule.
So we do not leave the handshake to chance. The SML-A6 docks to the stringer at a defined 1230 mm, and takes glass in and out at 950±50 mm — the second interface, to your glass loader, with a 50 mm band of adjustment built in. Both heights are on the acceptance table, not assumed from a layout sketch.
The one thing we ask in return is your stringer's out-string height at contract, not at install. Give it to us up front and the two machines are matched before either ships; leave it until the crates are open and any gap becomes that welded transition table, priced and scheduled after the fact.
Four moves
String In, Aligned, Laid, Out
The SML-A6 runs four moves in order, and every move is about position, not process — nothing here changes the cell, it only decides where the string ends up.
String arrives and is received
A finished string comes in short-edge from the stringer at the 1230 mm docking height, welded and ready to place.
CCD finds it
The CCD system reads the string's real position and rotation, so placement works from where the string actually is, not where it is assumed to be.
Placed by module geometry
The robot sets the string on the glass to the module pattern, holding ±0.5 mm layup accuracy and the 1–10 mm pitch your design calls for.
Laid-up glass leaves long-edge
The glass, now carrying its strings, goes out the long edge to bussing at the 950±50 mm glass height.
The move that separates a layup robot from a plain arm is the second one. A machine that places blind lays each string where it expected the string to be.
Reading the real position first is what lets the SML-A6 correct a small bow or rotation before the string ever touches the glass.
CCD read
±0.5 mm placed
The numbers
The Three Numbers Behind a Square Module
These are the numbers the SML-A6 is signed against — the beat, and the two placements that decide whether the module comes out square.
≥6 s
per string — the layup cadence, one string per beat
±0.5 mm
Layup accuracy · where the string pattern lands on the glass
±0.5 mm
Cell-string positioning · where each individual string sits
The two half-millimetre figures answer different questions, which is why both are on the table. Layup accuracy is whether the whole set of strings lands in the right place relative to the module frame; cell-string positioning is whether each string sits true within that set. A module can pass one and fail the other, so acceptance reads both — against the drawing you sign, not a datasheet average.
CCD vision
How the CCD Holds Half a Millimetre
Half-millimetre placement on a carried string is a seeing problem before it is a moving problem. The SML-A6 solves it with CCD vision rather than by trusting a fixed pick point.
- 1
A welded string isn't perfectly repeatable
Fresh from the stringer, a string can arrive with a slight bow or a few tenths of rotation off square — small errors a fixed grip-and-drop machine would print straight into the module.
- 2
The camera reads the real edge and angle
Before placing, the CCD reads the string's actual position on the in-feed, and the placement target is calculated from that reading — so the ±0.5 mm is held relative to where the string really is.
- 3
One look fixes both accuracies
The same read fixes the group's landing on the glass and each string's place within the group, so a string that comes in rotated is set down straight and the set stays registered to the module geometry bussing expects.
Plan around it
The Two Things You Plan Around It
Two boundaries are worth settling before the SML-A6 lands, because neither is a fault — both are consequences of what a placing robot is. The machine is built and accepted to the one module format you sign.
One is a work envelope you have to clear floor for; the other is a supply this machine will not share with the rest of the line.
Handled as standard
- A guarded work envelope — it comes fitted with access control or fencing, because a robot arm moving strings is a moving hazard that has to be enclosed.
- A defined module window — it lays modules 1650–2500 × 990–1450 mm, at 1–10 mm string pitch, to the format you provide.
What you plan around it
- Guard clearance in the layout — the fenced envelope needs net operating space around the machine, floor you budget beyond the footprint; how installed space differs from the outline sits on the utilities page.
- A single-phase three-wire supply — it does not tap a spare three-phase drop like the rest of the line; it needs its own single-phase feed, covered in the site row below.
How the module format is fixed at acceptance, and how a change to it is handled, has a page of its own. Plan it on the compatibility and changeover page → before you settle the module size.
Its neighbours
What It Takes From, and Hands To
Layup sits between welding and joining, with a glass feed of its own, and each neighbour has its own page — one line here, the rest a click away, so every handshake is settled before the crate ships.
-
In-feed from stringing
It takes finished strings from a tabber-stringer at the 1230 mm docking height; how the string is welded sits on the stringer pages.
See stringers -
Glass from the loader
Glass enters and leaves at the 950±50 mm height — the second interface the layout has to match, alongside the stringer handshake.
-
Out-feed to bussing
The laid-up glass leaves long-edge to have its strings joined with bus ribbon, the station immediately downstream of layup.
Your supply
Measure Your Floor and Your Supply First
Start with the supply, because the SML-A6 is the one machine on this line that will not share the others' power — it runs on a single-phase three-wire feed at 6 kW, not the three-phase drop every welding and scribing station takes; and being a robot, it also asks you to clear the access guard or fence around it, not just its footprint.
| Item | SML-A6 |
|---|---|
| Weight | approx. 3 t |
| Power | 6 kW |
| Supply | single-phase three-wire; feed 3×6 mm² |
| Air | φ12 fitting; ≥400 L/min; 0.6–0.8 MPa |
| Module size | 1650–2500 × 990–1450 mm |
Its feeders
The Stringers That Feed It
The SML-A6 is downstream of the stringer, so the machine that matters most to it is whichever stringer hands it strings — three sit on this site, one per route. The point here is the handshake, not a speed comparison: whichever you run, its strings arrive at the same 1230 mm height.
SML-S60 — BC High-Speed Stringer
The BC-route machine; open it if your cells are back-contact. Its strings feed layup like any other.
See the S60SML-S40 — Multi-Busbar Stringer
The standard TOPCon and PERC machine on the positive-pitch route.
See the S40SML-S15 — Entry Stringer
The entry-tier TOPCon and PERC machine, for a first line or an added string.
See the S15Whichever stringer feeds it, the interface is the same 1230 mm handshake — to compare the three by route and cadence, line them up on the tabber-stringer page →
After you buy
After You Buy
One thing on the acceptance list is on no other machine's — a safety enclosure, and the floor it needs.
Acceptance includes the safety enclosure — and its clearance
The SML-A6 ships with an access gate or fence, and the cell is not signed off until that interlock works; safety is part of what you accept, not an extra fitted after. It also shapes your layout — the fence claims its own clearance around the robot, so the space you free is the machine plus its guarded envelope. Plan that envelope before the cell lands, and acceptance has nothing left to catch.
See how acceptance is runConfirm the fit
Confirm the Handshake, Then the Machine
Send your string layout and your stringer's out-string height, and get back a layup interface check — whether the SML-A6 docks straight into your line, before anything is signed.
Layup interface checked against your line within 24 hours · email.