Page 32 - MetalForming November 2022

panies where aluminum often gets the call,” he explains. “Overall, we shipped 4.5 million parts last year for some 120 different active customers. We also sup- ply the bar industry, aftermarket auto- motive, HVAC and even prisons, among others.”
Among its most recent capital- equipment investments, to maintain pace with its growing customer base: a new robotic-welding cell, added in 2019 to take over for its aging work- horse. “We still use that old robotic welding workcell occasionally,” Reiker says, “but only out of necessity as demand requires it.”
The new welding cell on the block: an OTC Daihen Eco-Arc 200, with OTC Daihen’s exclusive Synchro-feed weld- ing package designed to provide ultra- low spatter, and ideal for the wide mix of material thicknesses at Haake, espe- cially thin-gauge parts with outside corner welds. Anchoring the cell is a model FD-B6 six-axis arc welding robot—6-kg payload capacity, 1445- mm reach and built-in wrist motors to avoid interference with jigs and work- pieces. It also boasts built-in cables to avoid weld-conduit interference and improve torch reach. And, OTC Daihen touts a seamless, high-speed digital connection to the welding power sup- ply and a built-in mechanical shock sensor as part of the package.
Aluminum Welding Shines
“Researching our robotic-welding options in 2019, we really appreciated the ability of the OTC Daihen cell to shine when welding aluminum,” Rieker says, also noting that the cell’s flexible tilt-turntable positioner allows it to complete complex weldments without requiring the robot to perform acro- batic maneuvers.
“We have one job, for example, welding an aluminum tube to a bracket for an assembly used in the sign indus- try, which requires a convoluted cir- cular weld path,” he explains. “We can use the tilt-turntable to maneuver and spin the part under the stationary weld- ing torch to maintain the proper torch orientation to the weld joint.”
The OTC Eco-Arc
production robotic
arc welding systems
are two-station, two-
table configurations
that allow an operator
to unload a finished
weldment and reload
parts into a fixture on
one worktable, all
while the robot welds
on the second table.
OTC offers the sys-
tems in several configurations—as a cobot production cell, a compact cell, a cell with fencing that anchors to the floor, a cell with the fencing mounted to a common base and large cells featuring long-reach robots and larger weld tables.
Haake’s system employs the OTC Daihen Synchro-feed gas-metal-arc- welding setup—500-A inverter-based pulsed power supply (OTC Daihen model WB-P500L) and weld-wire delivery system—that, OTC Daihen officials say, virtually eliminate weld spatter. Via a welding process called PulseDip, the setup incorporates a servo-driven wire feeder within the torch body that advances the welding wire forward to create the arc, and then precisely retracts the wire while syn- chronizing with a weld-current wave- form that extinguishes the arc. The result: consistent droplet transfer into the weld joint with minimal if any spatter.
The WB-500L power supply employs OTC Daihen’s Wave Pulse process that delivers high-speed waveform control, for spatter control as well as to mini- mize undercut during high-speed weld- ing. OTC Daihen also touts the power supply for eliminating the need for expensive helium-based shielding-gas mixtures, enabling instead the use of 100-percent argon on aluminum, and argon-CO2 mixtures when welding stainless steel.
Simpler to Program and Run
“Compared to our older robotic welding cell, we’ve found the Eco-Arc much simpler to program and operate,” Rieker says, noting that his program-
Haake’s robotic welding cell features OTC Daihen’s exclusive Synchro-feed welding package designed to provide ultra-low spatter, and proves ideal for the wide mix of material thicknesses at Haake, espe- cially thin-gauge parts with outside cor- ner welds. Anchoring the cell is a model FD-B6 six-axis arc welding robot with built-in wrist motors to avoid interference with jigs and workpieces.
mer can develop new robotic welding routines in 1 to 2 hr. using a teach pen- dant at the cell.
“And, while previously the operator tending our older cell required a lot of expertise in welding to avoid quality issues,” he adds, “when that operator left the company, we were able to replace him with a cell operator who knew how to program robots but lacked that higher level of welding expertise. That’s because the OTC Daihen welding system is so intuitive and forgiving; the operator does not need to have a lot of welding skill or knowledge. This new cell really does make it much easier for
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