Abstract: An electronic controller and portable programmer system for a pneumatically-powered point-to-point robot is disclosed. The microprocessor-based controller includes a read-only memory for storing the main control program, a non-volatile memory (EAROM) for storing a sequence of robot functions forming a user program, an output interface for transmitting control signals to the robot solenoid values, and an input interface for receiving feedback pressure signals to indicate that the various robot functions have been completed. The portable programmer provides a teach control unit, which is used to enter, edit, and test the user program. The teach control unit includes a matrix keyboard, a display, circuit means for decoding the keyboard and driving the display, and an interface for providing serial communication with the controller.

Abstract: For feeding short rods, which term includes tubes, such as clinical thermometer tubes with bulbs at one end, a feeding hopper has downwardly-converging bottom walls terminating in an elongated gap between their lower edges forming an elongated slot. Reciprocable horizontally beneath the slot is fluid-pressure-operated ejector plunger which feeds, one at a time, the short rods to a horizontal receiver composed of a pair of spaced parallel guide bars separated by a distance large enough to pass the rod but to detain the bulb, whereupon the rod pivots around the detained bulb to swing downward into the slot and comes to rest between the bars with the bulb uppermost and the rod suspended vertically from the bars.