ABIBLOG: ABICOR BINZEL's Welding Blog

Why cobot welding can be the solution for small and medium-sized companies

Automatically working welding robots as far as the eye can see. The robot arms move sometimes hectically, sometimes silently. There is a hiss, hum, and crackle in the air. You can only recognize a person here and there. Automation clearly dominates. Such a vision is more of a fear image for small and medium-sized companies, because people here seem to be completely in the background, yes, being pushed out of their job. So it seems. A machine like a collaborative robot – a so-called cobot – can support people in their work. The use of cobots in welding can thus become an economical solution for small and medium-sized companies.

Galvanized has become increasingly popular in the automotive manufacturing space as a corrosion resistant coating on steels. Mainly, it's put on there in a hot dip fashion where you're actually dipping the material in molten zinc and coating it that way. There's electro plating and galvanneal plating also. 

How to mitigate welding fume is a big topic. People, by instinct, oftentimes say, "Oh, I'll put a mask on and that'll be sufficient"

Now, however, there is a systematic approach that's been used by OSHA or any health and safety offices. Now, the approach is to start looking at the process, and starting at the bottom of mitigation pyramid and systematically moving up.

Eliminating or Substituting the Weld Process

The first question to ask is if it is possible to eliminate or substitute the process that's causing the fume? Obviously, most of the time it's not possible to remove welding from the operation. But it's worth considering if you are using stick welding or flux core welding whether you can substitute this process for a better process as far as smoke creation?

What is welding fumes? We all have an idea of what is welding fume. It is obviously coming from molten metal that you create when you're welding. The mixture of the welding smoke is changing from one process to the other, but overall, it's a mixture of very fine particles and gases.

Looking at Seam Tracking means looking at a variety of possible solutions. Depending on your process, material, and cycle time needs, the right solution will usually present itself over time.

But with if you aren't aware of ALL the solutions available?

Or just know about a couple?

When you start looking at fume extraction solutions, there are a multitude of engineered possibilities to assist in the capture of weld fume. These are typically the most effective way of dealing with weld fume in the workplace apart from removing the welding process.

When I used to teach robotic welding misconceptions, I used to try to clear up to people:

Spatter is weld wire.

Many manufacturing engineers are under the impression that spatter is the puddle exploding. That is true to a point, but where the misconception often comes in play is the thinking that the source of spatter is the base metal, which it is not. Really, spatter comes from the filter metal.

What really matters when welding aluminum

Frames of bicycles or motorcycles, trailers for trucks, profiles of rail vehicles, materials in space travel – aluminum is THE material when it comes to reducing weight and still achieving stability. In addition, a beautifully welded aluminum seam is a real eye-catcher.

When you are evaluating a new robot welding torch, the ramifications of the testing is huge. Normally for large manufacturing companies, this is putting a solutions on the production for years with a high equipment investment. This makes the need to get great data to use to evaluate the right solution critical.