Moving a raw steel plate from a stack to a machine table is one of the most repetitive jobs in a fabrication shop. Done by hand, it slows the line, wears out operators, and leaves room for scratches, dents, and dropped corners. The Herochu pneumatic sheet metal vacuum lifter with electric cantilever takes that step out of the manual workload. It grips a single sheet with vacuum, carries it across the work cell on an electric cantilever, and places it at a defined position – no hooks, no slings, no two-person lifts.
The machine separates the two halves of the handling task. The pneumatic side creates the lifting force through suction cups. The electric side handles travel, rotation, and height. Each system is controlled independently, so the same frame can be tuned for a fast, short cycle on a laser line or a slow, careful reach across a warehouse aisle. Shops that run mixed plate sizes adjust the cycle instead of re-tooling the machine.
How the Vacuum Circuit Grips a Single Sheet
A vacuum generator draws air out of the suction cups, creating negative pressure against the top plate of a stack. When the pressure differential is strong enough, the plate is held firmly and lifted clear of the plates below. The pneumatic architecture keeps the machine light – the structure is simple to assemble, disassemble, and relocate – and it adapts to plates of different sizes and surface conditions without changing tooling. Herochu matches the number of suction cups and the cup diameter to the plate weight in each model: an 8-cup layout with 200 mm cups for loads up to 300 kg, and a 10-cup layout with 250 mm cups for the 1000 kg version.
The Electric Cantilever: Travel, Rotation, and Height
The cantilever is where the machine earns its speed. The lifter travels along the arm, rotates through a ±150-degree range on the rotary manipulator, and raises and lowers the load under servo control. A plate can be lifted from a stack on one side of the cell, rotated past an obstacle, and set down facing the opposite direction. That range makes multi-station layouts practical – a storage rack, a destacker, a laser bed, a forming press – without moving machines to accommodate the handling.
Every movement is driven by high-torque servo drives. The servos keep motion smooth and free of vibration, so the plate surface is not scuffed and the load stays stable at every point in the cycle. Because the drive is electric, positioning is repeatable: the machine returns to the same coordinates on every cycle, which is exactly what a downstream machine needs when it expects a sheet in the same place every time.
Air Pressure Fail-Safe and Anti-Collision Protection
The split between pneumatic grip and electric motion shapes the safety behavior of the machine. If air pressure drops while a plate is in the air, the system reacts at once: the load locks in place instead of falling. This pneumatic fail-safe is standard on every Herochu lifter. An emergency braking module backs it up on the motion side – if power is lost or an operator hits the stop, the brakes hold the load where it is until the system is reset. Air cut-off protection and anti-collision devices complete the package, covering both the vacuum circuit and the travel path of the cantilever.
Model Range and Specifications
Herochu builds the lifter in five standard configurations. The HC-PR3015 series handles 3000 x 1250 mm plates; the HC-PR4020 series extends to 4000 x 1250 mm. Feeding thickness ranges from 8 mm to 20 mm, and maximum plate weight from 300 kg to 1000 kg. The minimum feeding width is 1250 x 1250 mm across the range. All models run on pneumatic/electric power.
Choose the model by the heaviest plate you intend to move, not the average. The vacuum circuit is sized for the load, and running a machine near its ceiling on every shift shortens service intervals.
Applications Across the Sheet Metal Shop
Typical installations include laser cutting lines, where the lifter feeds sheets onto the machine bed; press brake feeding; welding fixture loading; and plate transfer between storage racks and workstations. Because the machine can stop at any position in its stroke, operators can pause mid-cycle to align a plate or clear a fixture without completing the whole sequence. The design tolerates dirty shop floors and coated plates – two conditions that defeat roller conveyors and magnetic lifters.
In shops running two or three shifts, the pneumatic/electric combination keeps the handling step as reliable at 2 a.m. as it is at 9 a.m. The machine runs on shop air and standard power, installs on an existing column or frame, and needs no special foundation. A single operator runs the cycle from a pendant or a fixed panel, and the same unit moves from one line to the next when production priorities change.
Herochu HC-PR Series Pneumatic Sheet Metal Vacuum Lifter – Specifications
| Model | Thickness of feeding plate | Maximum feeding width | Minimum feeding width | Maximum plate weight | Number of suction cups | Suction cup diameter | Power mode |
| HC-PR3015-300 | 8 mm | 3000×1250 mm | 1250×1250 mm | 300 kg | 8 | 200 mm | Pneumatic/Electric |
| HC-PR3015-500 | 12 mm | 3000×1250 mm | 1250×1250 mm | 500 kg | 8 | 200 mm | Pneumatic/Electric |
| HC-PR3015-1000 | 20 mm | 3000×1250 mm | 1250×1250 mm | 1000 kg | 10 | 250 mm | Pneumatic/Electric |
| HC-PR4020-300 | 8 mm | 4000×1250 mm | 1250×1250 mm | 300 kg | 8 | 200 mm | Pneumatic/Electric |
| HC-PR4020-500 | 12 mm | 4000×1250 mm | 1250×1250 mm | 500 kg | 8 | 200 mm | Pneumatic/Electric |
Power mode: Pneumatic/Electric. Minimum feeding width applies across all models.
For a shop that wants the grip of a vacuum lifter and the reach of a cantilever without buying a full robot cell, the Herochu pneumatic sheet metal vacuum lifter with electric cantilever is a direct answer. It is the kind of machine that pays for itself in the first months, simply by keeping stacks of plates moving without a crew on the floor.
