Pally General - Lifting Columns

Lifting columns are used to enable an installation to palletize higher pallets. It is important to remember that by adding a tall lifting column it can create reach issues on the lower layers because the mounting height increases.

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Use any lifting column with Pally. Pally will control the motion of a lifting column during palletizing, either by communication with the respective SW, with I/O’s or control the lifting column with a script. The current position of the lifting column is a parameter in all calculations in the Pally path planning.

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There are some natively integrated lifting columns added to Pally. Using a natively integrated lifting column, Pally will communicate with the SW for the lifting column, and you can use the dynamic positioning feature.

Dynamic positioning enables the lifting column to move dynamically. This means it can move up and down to maximize the robot's reach. Dynamic positioning is automatically enabled when you choose a natively integrated lifting column. This feature calculates the optimal position of the lifting column based on both the pickup and target position of the next box. The effect is increased cases per minute (CPM) palletized. Therefore, we suggest keeping this enabled. You choose dynamic positioning in the lifting column menu in Pally.

If your chosen lifting column is not natively integrated in Pally, you can still easily use it together with Pally. The lifting column will then be controlled with I/O’s and only have two positions - up or down. This will work without any problems, but it will create more movements and decrease the efficiency of the palletizing compared to integrated lifting columns, where we can set different positions. We also recommend using dynamic positioning when using a Generic lifting column, even if it will have only two possible positions.

It can be possible to control the lifting column with a script as well. Just select “special (write your own code)” in the lifting column type drop-down. This option requires a special license, so please contact your contact at Rocketfarm before using this option.

Then include this script file in the first node of the Pally program and fill the empty functions with content.

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Fill the empty functions with code to control your lifting column.