Page 17 - MetalForming February 2010

Robotic Welder Prevents a Downstream Bottleneck
“The key benefit is throughput,” stresses Belzer. “That’s because we have combined the CL-850 with a robotic welder in a processing cell. Work from the cutting system feeds directly to the robot, and the precision and consisten- cy of laser cutting ensures optimal part fitup for welding, minimizing process- ing time and material handling.”
For example, Belzer notes that pro- cessing time has dropped by more than half, when fabricating galvanized steel for irrigation-system control panels. Laser cutting eliminates hard tooling for such parts, which have a number of cutouts, he says.
Also helping to slash processing time is the addition of dual quick-change pallets to the laser-cutting system, which enables an operator to load and unload pallets offline while the system cuts work on the second pallet. The CL-850 fea- tures two 6- x 12-ft. pallets, compared to the single 5- x 10-ft. cutting table on Lindsay’s older laser-cutting machine.
“Pallet change takes just seconds,” says Belzer, “enabling nearly nonstop cutting efficiency. By comparison, we had to stop our previous single-bed laser to remove finished parts and reload material for the next cutting cycle.”
Batch Processing Optimizes Material Yield
In all, the new machine processes several hundred different part num- bers, primarily mild steel 1⁄4 in. and thinner. Lindsay machine operators program parts and jobs, a process that begins by downloading AutoCAD draw- ings directly from the mainframe to the laser. Cincinnati’s nesting software then is used to batch parts for opti- mum material yield.
“The laser processes four different material thicknesses in a typical shift,” says Belzer, “allowing versatility of scheduling and enabling nesting and batch processing of common-thickness parts.” MF
Article supplied by Cincinnati Inc., Cincin- nati, OH: 513/367-7100; www.e-ci.com.
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