In 2013, the German government proposed "Industry 4.0", aiming to enable machines to control each other and raise production quality and efficiency to a new level through intelligent manufacturing.

Japan is one of the earliest countries to widely use industrial robots on a large scale. Currently, it is popularizing robots in more fields and is moving towards becoming a "robot nation".

Robots are no longer indispensable in the manufacturing field. With the research and application of robots in medical care and elderly care services, robots have entered the lives of ordinary people.

However, in recent years, China's robot cable industry has developed rapidly, with its market position gradually improving, and a number of robot cable manufacturing enterprises have emerged. With the proposal of the "Made in China 2025" concept, an increasing number of cable enterprises have listed robot cables as emerging products for development and planning, giving rise to a wave of robot cable trends.

Robot cables are important components in robots and can be regarded as the central nervous system of robots. According to incomplete statistics, foreign-funded enterprises have almost dominated the domestic robot cable business, securing approximately 80% of the orders.

However, at present, there are no relevant product standards for robot cables. A few enterprises only rely on the requirements of the original equipment manufacturers for product production, and there are no established technical specifications yet. This brings great difficulties to the research and development of enterprises. At the same time, the absence of product standards is also not conducive to the healthy growth of the market.

During this process, many robot cable manufacturers often fall into some common misunderstandings:

Misconception 1: A cable that can withstand tens of millions of mechanical tests is a good one from China

Many robot cable manufacturers still use the same criteria as those used by cables in other industries in the past to evaluate the quality of their products, that is, the load-bearing capacity of mechanical tests. In terms of testing methods, they pursue a "" testing challenge, that is, the cable can withstand ten million motion tests.

Wear resistance is indeed important, but a holistic perspective is necessary. There are three reasons for this:

1. The testing instrument cannot achieve the capacity for tens of millions of continuous tests. If there is a pause during the intervals, the test results will be inaccurate.

2. Testing cycle and cost: If the number of sports tests reaches tens of millions, the cycle may be several years and the cost may exceed one million, which is not in line with cost accounting for enterprises.

3. The testing requirements for robot cables are not only to consider the transmission of electrical energy, but also to take into account the function of carrying signal transmission. Whether mechanical testing will affect the stability of signal transmission due to cable loss is a core element of the quality of robot cables.

Due to the particularity of different industries, quality standards should be considered from multiple dimensions, and the limit values of testing should be defined from the rationality of testing, cost structure and dynamic changes.

Misconception 2: Price advantage is more important than product design

Among most Chinese manufacturers, although they are confronted with fierce market price competition, their major drawback is the lack of design capabilities in the emerging robot component industry, which is precisely a necessary condition affecting performance.

Take conductor copper as an example. The common drawing wire process cannot meet the requirements of cables. During our testing process, it often occurs that the product breaks after 100,000 mechanical tests. However, the products from Japan and Germany can withstand more than ten times the number of tests compared to domestic products. Their design process has 20 to 30 years of R&D and production experience. However, domestic enterprises have only been in operation for 10 years, which is why 80% of robot manufacturers prefer to purchase imported products. Facing such challenges, changing the design is the key to improving quality and obtaining orders.

Misconception 3: Robot manufacturers have no requirements for retesting

At present, most machine manufacturers only require component suppliers to provide certification reports during the procurement process. However, with the popularization of robots, in the future, they will pay more and more attention to the depreciation rate and wear degree of components such as cables, and conduct retests during use to evaluate the durability of the materials and the stability of signal transmission