Benefits of Robotic Welding

March 14, 2016

Increase Productivity, Lower Operating Costs

According to the American Welding Society, 40 percent of manufacturing companies have declined new clients due to a lack of skilled workers. Fewer high school graduates are joining the technical trades, and the average age of welders today is 55 – on the verge of retirement. How can manufacturers respond? Automation.

The benefits of robotic welding include increased weld uniformity, improved lead times and lower operating costs thanks to decreased waste of filler material, shielding gases and production time. Today, intuitive teaching technology eliminates the need for programmers and allows the best welders to spend their time optimizing processes for many machines instead of yielding a single welding gun.

It's clear robotic welding integration leads to increased productivity for manufacturers. Still hazards exist in facilities utilizing automated welding solutions. Many people can point to the typical hazards associated working among automated machinery and take the necessary safeguards to avoid them like interlock switches and two-hand controls. Even though there are less humans directly involved in automated welding processes, it remains vital to monitor the air quality in these environments for the benefit of the operators and plant-wide environment.

Robotic Welding Ventilation

Welding ventilation for automated solutions have to be able to function as efficiently as the robot without getting in the way of the process. For this reason, traditional source capture methods, which typically need to be manually repositioned, aren't feasible. Instead, “cells” are created to contain the fumes, smoke and sparks created by the robotic welder.

In most applications, vent hoods are incorporated to draw fumes and smoke up and out of the cell to be filtered. Sometimes, backdrafts are created to pull fumes towards a side of the cell where a filtration unit is located. The best robotic welding ventilation solutions incorporate a system to manage sparks and avoid fires.

Robotic Welding Ventilation Systems by RoboVent, The Leader in Clean Air

Robovent offers a wide selection of ventilation systems robotic welding applications from modular enclosures to custom-built, multi-cell units. Our robotic welding ventilation solutions deliver clean air in the most demanding automated production facilities. Innovations such as SparkOut fire suppression, ePad Control Panels and SafeSensor particulate monitoring – coupled with the best customer care and warranty in the industry – make RoboVent the unrivaled leader in clean air technology.

The RoboVent WeldCat™ system dedicates one filtration unit to each weld cell to reduce the possibility of total system failure. The RoboVent FloorSaver™ system dedicates a filtration unit to each weld cell, like the WeldCat, but incorporates it above the weld area to save valuable floor space. The RoboVent Fusion 3® Series system can integrate multiple weld cells to a single filtration unit and provides superior configuration flexibility. All of our systems incorporate the RoboVent Flexan™ modular vent hood designed for simple and efficient use.