ABIBLOG USA: ABICOR BINZEL's Welding Blog

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.

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.

When evaluating the cost of your welding operation, it is important to consider the low-cost items that stack up over time; like your consumables, and more specifically, your contact tips.

Fume extraction systems are big investment for your plant. Especially when using either a single station or multi-station fume extractor, it's bound to encounter problems at some point during it's service life.

That's normal and you shouldn't be surprised by that.

If you are a welder, weld foreman, or welding engineer using a fume extraction welding gun, the shroud is one of the more unique features you have questions about.

Let's face it: for most people looking at Fume Extraction, many of them have never seen fume extractions solutions before aside from extractor arms. 

That means most Safety Managers, Production Managers, or business Owners - and I may be talking to you directly - don't even know what questions to ask themselves before getting started.

The robotic fume extraction landscape has featured few lean, advanced, and cost-effective solutions for manufacturers. While fume extraction for manual welding has experienced a significant spike in new solutions entering the market – from high-vacuum systems to multi-gun units, to countless new fume extraction gun concepts – robotics has remained ignored and mostly unchanged with minimal innovation to speak of.

Fume extraction systems are not all created equally for welding. While the basic premise of a system is the same, and from the outside many look similar, like any product there are a variety of features and specifications that impact fume extraction welding performance in an industrial setting. The factors you will be looking at when sorting through all the choices will be items like: