Gantry Style Stud Welding Cell
Gantry Style Stud Welding Cell Case Study
Project Details
- MESH designed, manufactured, integrated and started-up a custom engineered stud welding cell for welding various sized parts. The capacitive discharge stud welding process was used to eliminate back marking and spatter.
- This machine was used to weld studs onto a stainless steel sheet metal door to attach hinges, handles and other equipment. There were no plans for refinishing the product, so aesthetics were critical.
- The machine also utilized a camera to find corners and centers of cutout features and locate studs in relation to those features.
Automation Equipment
- Six HBS KAH412 Automatic stud gun
- Three HBS VBZ Bowl feeders
- Three HBS PBZ manual feeding escapements
- One HBS CDMi2402
- Cognex camera
Fixturing
- Custom engineered servo fixturing.
- Fixture featured multiple grounding clamps to evenly distribute grounding spots.
- Fluoroclad SDFC was used on parts where spatter could stick. Additionally hardened tooling was used for grounding pads.
Final Project Outcome
- Productivity: Cell allowed the customer to get away from batch processing. Additionally, the cell could weld studs 3 or 4 times faster than a human operator and do so more consistently.
- Quality: Stud were welded to within 0.006”. Additionally, poorly welded stud issues were eliminated since the machine can hold the gun perfectly square to the workpiece.
- Uptime/ Maintenance: The cell achieved an OEE of 93%.
- Changeover Time: Instant and 100% automatic.