Automating Welding: Americraft purchases a FANUC CRX-10iA/L Collaborative Robot
In manufacturing industrial fans and ventilators, a time-consuming area of production is the need for small, repetitive welds needed for smaller components of the fan. While important, it can drain time needed for welding larger parts that require more complicated, detailed welds. Finding a way to reduce the time needed on making these parts to lower our lead times without lowering our standards became a priority for Americraft.
Introducing our new welder, the FANUC Collaborative Robot, affectionately dubbed Carlton by our staff. This robot provides us with our first exposure to automating welding with robotics.
It is lightweight, compact, very mobile and safe to use. Carlton is designed for manufacturers with minimal robot experience. It is fairly easy to program but still requires a programmer’s expertise. Carlton will assist our welding team by welding small fan components that are repetitive in nature, thereby freeing up the capacity of our “human” welders to concentrate on the larger, more complex jobs. One of Carlton’s remarkable attributes is 8 years of ZERO maintenance. Imagine that! This will save additional time in our manufacturing process.
The range of Carlton’s expertise is wide, but like any new technology, there is an initial learning curve to integrating it into processes. Below are photos of two finished parts that were the first to be welded by the robot. Both tasks are simple welds, and only need assistance to change out the finished part with a new one. For manufacturing a variety of fans ranging in size up to 60”, being able to delegate these pieces to Carlton provides relief for our welders to focus their attention on larger, more detailed, and custom-ordered fans.
One of the first parts Carlton was trained on is stitch welding a cap and collar, which houses the bearing for the B fan series.
The robot can weld the rods into angle iron, which creates the pivot pin for opening and closing the flapper stack dampers on roof exhausters.
The robot is also capable of welding larger parts outside the table. We are in the process of fabricating a large turntable that can accommodate all sizes of tube axial fan drums. The robot will be programmed to either stitch or solid weld the drum to the flanged rings as the table rotates. Our plant manager and welding team are always brainstorming new tasks and programming the robot for success. We are excited to be automating welding and continue to find ways to optimize our production. Welcome to the team, Carlton!
