GRABO Quality Engineering

GRABO is a firm that thrives on the unexpected! Initially focused on amphibious tools for use in harsh environments, GRABO’s systems are flexible, reliable, and always innovative. GRABO tools are meticulously designed to support your lifting and moving demands.

Vacuum Lifting Equipment: A Positive Force for Change!

GRABO branded technology strives to make heavy lifting easy. We’re actively disrupting the international handheld vacuum suction cup industry with each innovation. Top line electric suction cup tools from GRABO are changing the way people lift and move. We know this is a positive change, no matter where our customers are based in the world.

Nemo tools are innovative, disruptive, and meticulously designed and tested. We know what builders and fitters are looking for in top technology. Making bigger jobs more comfortable and more flexible - that’s our ongoing goal.

We’re proud to host R&D engineers all over the world. From Shenzen to San Francisco, Israel to Hong Kong, we are very widely spread. Our R&D experts live and breathe new tool innovations. We never stop looking for trailblazing ways to make everyday processes that bit simpler!

Here are a few innovations we’re known for:

  • We work with high-end technology. Our tools make use of marine level sealing and fabrication hardware. We also use electronics innovations typically found in drone production.
  • Our vacuum lifting technology is fully patented. We develop unique, leading tools for anti-slip grip and effortless lifting of a massive array of material.
  • Our long reach extensions help to make lifting ergonomically a breeze.
  • We’re developing intelligent tools, too. Our products arrive with digital sensors to advise of lifting capacities.
  • You’re also able to control multiple GRABOs from afar with remote add-ons.
  • We also support high flow vacuum pumping—great lifting support for dry cast materials and porous tiles.
  • You’ll even be able to control GRABO tech via app and Bluetooth very soon indeed!

We never stop innovating. Our products are constantly improving, continuously disrupting, and perform to the highest possible standards. Quality end-user experiences are, of course, what we strive for in all that we do.

Keeping a seal against porous materials.

Porous surfaces are some of the most difficult to lift and move. This is because this type of surface or panel contains small holes or gaps that allow air to travel through. For example, you may expect a porous surface to be made from wood, concrete or even ceramics. The fact is, many suction and lifting tools cannot hold or handle porous surfacing as they cannot complete a seal.

Standard suction, while working well with clean, flat surfaces, rarely copes well with porosity. Even if spaces are microscopic, seals are complicated to maintain. While you may adhere to a suction cup for a few seconds or more, the hold will not persist.

Vacuum cavities are complicated to manage with standard suction. That’s why GRABO vacuum lifter technology is leading the industry.

We design tools that benefit from patented air balancing. Crucially, this means a GRABO tool will produce more air through lifting than will expect to escape through holes and spaces. This requires a lot of interesting calculations, as it is more than a simple ratio or balance! However, at base level, it is a case of pumping out more air than your porous surface stands to lose.

We design our suction cup tools based on the methodologies of Murray’s Law. Essentially, this means we consider mass variation, power transfer and molecular diffusion. The equations are often fairly complex - but GRABO engineers are immensely skilled at this level of analytics.

Engineers design tools based on your ‘flow rate’ (air transfer) and surface area in question. By multiplying the flow rate by the surface area, we learn how powerful our pumps need to be.

We’ve designed and engineered our tools to work with some of the most awkward and/or complex surfaces. If you’re intrigued to learn more, take a look at our table below!

The flow rate required from GRABO to keep a strong vacuum seal against a porous surface, is generally described by a formula of generalized Murray’s law

where the X is the ratio of mass variation during mass transfer in the parent pore, the exponent α is dependent on the type of the transfer. For laminar flow α = 3; for turbulent flow α = 7/3; for molecule or ionic diffusion α = 2; etc

The flow rate is than multiplied by the surface area under the seal for a given pressure differential, which results in the flow rate and power requirement from GRABO’s internal electric pump.

However, as interesting as the engineering is, users of GRABO do not need to worry about the science. All you need to know, is the GRABO is designed to work well on some of the most common porous materials in the industry.

* For specific max lifting force capabilities, refer to the table “Lifting force under different conditions” table at the bottom of this page.

GRABO's Gripper technology:
What is a vacuum gripper (GRABO)?
A vacuum gripper comprises a rigid base element and a loop-shaped vacuum seal element. The base element has first and second opposite sides. The seal element is attached at least indirectly to the second side and protruding therefrom in a direction away from the first side. The seal element comprises a contact surface that at least partially contacts with an object surface and an encircling surface oriented transversely to the contact surface so as to define a chamber. The seal element is elastically deformable at the contact surface to enable conforming to the object surface when pressed thereagainst. The vacuum gripper comprises an air extraction means mounted to the first side to be in fluid communication with the chamber through the base element, and configured to continuously extract air from the chamber to cause the contact surface to be urged towards and grip the object surface when pressed thereagainst.
The above is a description of GRABO's core - an electric vacuum gripper, capable of attaching itself to different surfaces by means of an powerful constant flow air pump & and a uniquely designed sealing technology.

How Vacuum lifting works:

Pressure and force are related, and so you can calculate one if you know the other by using the physics equation, P = F/A. Because pressure is force divided by area, its meter-kilogram-second (MKS) units are newtons per square meter, or N/m2.

GRABO uses extremely powerful air pumps which provide both a high rate of flow (10 liter per minute up to 500 liters per minute in some models) and a high pressure delta (commonly referred to as "strong suction", "strong vacuum" or "low pressure") of up to -0.85 bar.
From a technical point of view, even if the air flow is small, a small vacuum pump can create a huge holding force effect. For example, a typical centrifugal vacuum pump such as the pine used in vacuum cleaners can lift a 200 Cm high column of water (The vacuum pressure is often measured in "CM h20". 200 cm H2o is equal to 0.2 bar). This means that If it is completely sealed a pressure of 0.2 bar will act upon a surface. The total force of a lifting device however is proportional not only to the pressure, but the surface area.
So in order to find the actual "holding force" of an electric suction cup such as GRABO, one must multiply the pressure delta with the surface area of the vacuum chamber.
F = PA
In our case, a pressure delta of 0.85 bar (or 85000 pascal) multiplied by a surface area of a typical GRABO vacuum chamber (- 0.0282 M^2), gives us a force of 2400 Newton,or (240 Kg - 530 lbs). The actual "safe lifting" force listed on the products are generally lower by 30% to 50%, so you are likely to see a "120 Kg max lifting capacity" note on a GRABO which is actually capable of lifting much higher loads under ideal conditions.
Porous materials complicate our calculation above slightly. When a porous material is lifted - a higher air flow is needed in order to compensate for air leaks and maintain a sufficient vacuum. This is where the high flow air pumps of the GRABO really come into play.
While low flow - high pressure delta pumps can in theory allow for heavy loads to be lifted by gradually reducing the air pressure within the air chamber - the real world acts slightly differently.
When lifting a piece of Plywood, drywood or other porous materials, the average pressure changes from a maximum of 0.85 bar to a value determined by a complex combination of the airflow rate provided by the pump and the porosity of the material.

HIGH TECH PRODUCTION FACILITY

Want to know more about how GRABO electric lifter technology is made? We’re relentless in our pursuit of impeccable product quality. That’s why we only ever make sure our tools leave assembly lines once they meet our precise, exacting standards.

Why not look behind the scenes of our assembly line? Don’t forget to inquire about aftercare, warranty and more, too.

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