Techman's S series is not a new cobot line. It is the old arms, rebuilt to a third of the tolerance

Techman Robot unveiled the TM AI Cobot S series at Automate 2023 in Detroit on 22 May 2023. Read the four base models against the arms they replace, and the series turns out to be a rebuild rather than a new range — the geometry is carried over almost unchanged, and what moves is the precision. The TM12S carries 12 kg over 1300 mm and weighs 33 kg. The TM12 of 2018 carried 12 kg over 1300 mm and weighed 32.8 kg. The difference is repeatability: plus/minus 0.1 mm then, plus/minus 0.03 mm now. The TM14S repeats the pattern against the TM14 — same 14 kg, same 1100 mm, tolerance cut by the same factor of a little over three. That is where Techman's advertised "up to 70 percent" improvement in repeatability is literally true. At the top of the range it is not: the company's own product pages give the TM25S and TM30S plus/minus 0.05 mm. The smaller pair moved further. The TM5S keeps the 946 mm reach of the 2016 TM5-900 but lifts 5 kg instead of 4, and the TM7S takes the place of the TM5-700 with 7 kg over 758 mm instead of 6 kg over 700 mm. Both gained the same tolerance step, from plus/minus 0.05 mm to plus/minus 0.03 mm. The rest of the S-series package is what a 2016 or 2018 arm does not have: IP65 sealing instead of IP54, so the machine can be hosed down; a sixth axis turning at 450 rather than 225 degrees per second, which the manufacturer converts into a claimed 25 percent shorter cycle; and up to 31 TUV-certified safety functions rated PL d, Cat 3, which Techman says remove the need for a separate safety PLC in the cell. One detail is worth reading carefully before ordering. In the older line the model number named the family and a suffix gave the reach, so a TM5-700 was the short version of a TM5. In the S series the number is the payload in kilograms and the reach is not in the name at all — which is why the TM5S reaches 188 mm further than the TM7S sitting next to it in the same catalogue. The catalogue now holds all eight S-series arms alongside the older line they were built from.