AS Welding Automation with Dual-Station Operation and Automatic Camera Positioning
This new generation of stud welding systems ushers in a new era of automated stud welding. Workpiece stops and earth clamps are no longer required. Simply place the workpiece anywhere in the working area, press start and the welding process runs fully automatically. This reduces set-up times to a minimum in production with a high product variety.
On this system, position detection is based on circles that are applied by a laser in an upstream process step. The integrated camera system detects these circles and positions the system accordingly, so that the weld studs are placed in the correct locations.
Another advantage of this system is that programming effort is reduced to a minimum. Two motion programs are available per head, for which only the length of the studs currently in use needs to be entered.
The system has two working areas measuring 500 x 500 mm. These can be operated alternately or individually.
The system is equipped with two AS Ak1 welding heads. This makes it possible to weld two different stud types onto one workpiece without any changeover time. In this case, studs with diameters of M8 and M6 are processed. The stud length varies between 45 mm and 80 mm. Thanks to the integrated Z-axis, these different lengths can be welded with one head without retooling.
The system is equipped with two AS 2210 CNC stud welders, which deliver high-quality welding results. The AS 2210 features a welding inverter with constant current characteristics. This allows the set current to be kept constant during welding.
Stud feeding is fully automated and monitored by a special feeding system based on the fully digital VBZ 5100 system. Simply pour the studs straight from the bag into the separating unit and they are automatically separated and fed to the welding head as required by the process. Alternatively, special studs can be loaded manually.
The system can be operated in automatic and manual mode via the HMI. The HMI can be controlled either by touchscreen or by mouse and keyboard.
As this system is a pilot project, further extensions are conceivable, for example detection of the complete workpiece positions and positioning as well as tool selection based on drawing data (DXF/STEP).
Due to customer requirements, short-cycle stud welding without shielding gas is used on this system. Using shielding gas can produce visually higher-quality welds. On this system, 5 mm stainless steel workpieces are processed with stainless steel studs.
