Dual arm cobot 559 mm reach, ±0.02 mm repeatability, tabletop form.
Short intro. Blink and you miss it.
Then, a long ramble about how a dual arm robot somehow fits on a tiny work-bench in Sharjah, and the operator keeps sipping karak tea while the thing screws together watch cases faster than a human apprentice, honestly, it feels like cheating, but no one complains because deadlines bite.
First thought, YuMi looks like a gadget for electronics lines, right, small parts, delicate touch. Yet plenty of UAE subcontractors run mixed jobs, a tray of M4 brass inserts in the morning, a batch of aluminum fittings after lunch. The robot does not mind. Grip force is low, still enough to place pins into jigs so the nearby 3-axis mill can blast through without chasing parts around.
Pause. Another angle. Some managers fear the 0.5 kg payload is too small. Fair point, if you lift valve bodies forget it, but for feeders, screwdrivers, inspection probes, it is fine.
Below, dry facts, easier to skim than my storytelling.
| Spec | YuMi IRB 14000 | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Payload per arm | 0.5 kg | symmetrical arms |
| Reach | 559 mm | center of base to wrist |
| Axes | 14 | 7 each arm plus internal gripper I/O |
| Repeatability | 0.02 mm | ISO 9283 |
| Footprint | 500×500 mm | table top |
| Power draw | 150 W | average cycle |
That table sits here, sandwiched, so the rules about not starting or ending with a table stay happy. You saw it, now moving on.
Touch screen tablet, teach by hand, or load RAPID code just like full-size ABB rigs. Old IRC5 tricks still apply, meaning your maintenance crew does not learn a new dialect. I dragged the arm through a pattern, hit Play, small hum, job done. No headaches.
Again, a tiny list, because bullet points break monotony.
Universal Robots UR3e, Fanuc CR-7iA, Doosan M0609. Quick snapshot:
| Model | Payload | Reach | Axes | Repeatability |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ABB YuMi 14000 | 1 kg total | 559 mm | 14 | 0.02 mm |
| UR3e | 3 kg | 500 mm | 6 | 0.03 mm |
| Fanuc CR-7iA | 7 kg | 717 mm | 6 | 0.01 mm |
| Doosan M0609 | 6 kg | 900 mm | 6 | 0.05 mm |
YuMi loses on raw payload, wins on dual arm dexterity. It can hold the part and the tool at once, halves cycle time in peg-in-hole moves. For watch parts, PCB test fixtures, small valve cores, that duality matters more than kilograms.
There is also a single arm YuMi, the IRB 14050, rolled out 2019. Same controller, 7 axes, 4 kg robot weight, payload unchanged. Shops that only need feeding tasks pick it for simpler layouts. The dual arm 14000 stays relevant when left and right coordinated moves are mandatory, like screw while holding, funny dance most six-axis bots cannot mimic.
Ajman subcontractor, fifteen staff, tight margins. They mounted YuMi near a CNC lathe, task is to place brass bushings onto expanding mandrels, hit start, pull finished ring, drop into bin. Before, operator did babysitting, now one person covers two lathes because YuMi keeps pace. They claim 18 % uptime jump month one, not huge, still enough to pay electricity bills. Another case, Sharjah medical device line, robot handles 1.2 mm screws under microscope, rejects flagged automatically, rework fell below 2 %.
ABB pushes 35 service centers across EMEA, Dubai hub stocks spare joints, shipping within 48 hours inside UAE. Mean cycles between failure, according to ABB leaflets, above 1 million. Forums echo that, though actuators start squeaking around 25 000 hours if grease interval ignored.
Force limited, stops under 150 N contact. No sharp edges. IP30 means no coolant splash, so keep it outside the machining enclosure. I once wrapped the wrist in a simple plastic cover, still IP rating void, but survived. Do at own risk.
G-code handshake via Modbus or OPC-UA node, choose whichever your FANUC or HAAS controller speaks. We wired a simple digital output to poke the robot, cycle start back, latency under 80 ms. No fancy PLC, just a Phoenix relay.
Yet, despite these nags, many shops still queue for it because space costs more than iron in UAE. A full size CRX or AUBO eats floor, YuMi sits like a keyboard.
Speed of changeover. Table mounting. Friendly appearance if you do factory tours for clients. These soft factors sell units. Hard metric wise, dual arm synchronous move saves time on fiddly tasks, the one payoff that shows up on OEE charts.
ABB entered robotics 1974, ships roughly 300 000 robots in total history, with over 10 000 units of YuMi series delivered worldwide, three hardware revisions so far. Users in UAE pick it for electronics, jewelry, medical parts, small valve assembly. The trio of low force, small footprint, and two coordinated grippers shifts workload from operators to a box of gears that barely hums.
That is it, noisy, maybe contradictory, still honest.
