A bit of Auto GTAW

[Richard.]

We have a little range of positioners that we manufacture as modular systems. So they are fully integrated with a control system and a power source.

Like all Lorch equipment, you simply feed it information and the equipment takes care of the rest perfectly.

A customer wants to speed up a little repetitive job of Tig welding a disc onto a stainless tube to form an end cap. They have Been doing it manually and now looking to increase quality and speed.
So me and Matt had a bash at some today on the Turn 50 modular system with V50
Matt dialled in the tube diameter, a travel speed and a lovely pulse setting and away we went.
Some pics from today.

Cap fitted

Welded up
A little polish.

 

[stuvy]

You should do this full time

Only messing I’d love to be that consistent

 

[arther dailey]

very nice,but you would have to do a hell of a lot to be cost effective surely?

 

[Richard.]

Of course.
It’s a repetitive job.

 

[minimutly]

Can you explain to me the benefits of pulse welding - I assume it's a DC only function, my welder has it but I wouldn't know where to start with settings?

 

[Richard.]

A pulse weld is carried out by two current levels
The top current is too high for the material your welding and the bottom current is too low but working together they give you an average current which set up correctly will be about right for the gage/job you intend to weld.

The advantages imo only really come to light once you get the frequency above 200hz the high current puts lots of heat and fusion into the job and the low current is a cooling phase required to obviously keep things from blowing through. When they are set up nicely the arc becomes really tight and stable. You are able to pick up the travel speed slightly and as we know any increase in travel speed reduces heat input and distortion. Sometimes to increase travel speed you can just increase the current but only to a point before your too hot simply for the gage. By pulsing the current you get a bit of the best of both worlds because your able to use much higher currents which increase your speed but the lower current phase Controls against blowing it to bits. We are not talking massive increases in speed because your still working with an average current but the focus and added control over the pool that can be set up with pulse makes a substantial difference especially on thin gages. It lends itself to outside corners beautifully.
It can be used on AC too if you wanted too.

 

[sako243]

Is there any benefit over just getting the average current right in the first instance?

 

[Richard.]

Is there any benefit over just getting the average current right in the first instance?

Yes in the right application because the peak current spikes just like welding in one hot flat current force your hand to speed up. Forget the average bit for a second it’s the hot spikes that get you moving, the cold spikes simply prevent it blowing through. It’s not for everything and over 2mm or joints that just need a current boost it’s less useful but really thin stuff that needs a high focus arc and zipping across quickly it proves very useful.

 

[Kent]

Theres gonna be one happy customer after that.
Will save skilled labour and increase quality in one hit,

 

[Richard.]

Theres gonna be one happy customer after that.
Will save skilled labour and increase quality in one hit,

Yeah I did one by hand before the equipment arrived which took me just over a minute and 3 stop points
Looks ok
Then the turn 50 spat out this in 21 seconds.
Which obviously looks factory.

 

[addjunkie]

How does it fair with repeatability, as youd need human input to change each piece to be welded.

 

[Richard.]

Yeah the parts would need fitting and the arc length set. Wouldn’t be difficult to implement a back stop so the bars all sit in the same place with the same stick out. It comes with a live centre attachment on the arm so no need to tack the disc on just place and weld if wanted. Can be very repeatable once into the swing. I’d certainly never keep up with it.

 

[Wallace]

Is the chuck manual or automatic? Hard to see in the photo if the chuck has key slots.

 

[Richard.]

Is the chuck manual or automatic? Hard to see in the photo if the chuck has key slots.

3 jaw Manual with a standard T key

 

[Kent]

Yeah I did one by hand before the equipment arrived which took me just over a minute and 3 stop points
Looks ok View attachment 181408
Then the turn 50 spat out this in 21 seconds. View attachment 181409
Which obviously looks factory.

Less than half the time and better finish. If you have 100 or more to do you probably paid for all the kit in wages and thats nit counting replacing all the bored employees who get landed with that job

 

[henry Kadzielski]

Rotators, even manual ones are a wonderfull thing. I use one to do all my round sections to plate, once the (in my case mig) mig is set up correctly it is just press the pedal at the same time the gun trigger and off you go. No stop starts to dress out, perfectly even and consistent. My customer shows my welds to their customers as to the quality that they can expect problem is I am only doing less than a quarter of their work have been working on increasing that portion.

 

[Munkul]

Quality.

So assuming three main expenses there? The rotator, the cold wire feed, and the v50 controlling it all? Is it a standard V50 plant?

 

[Richard.]

Quality.

So assuming three main expenses there? The rotator, the cold wire feed, and the v50 controlling it all? Is it a standard V50 plant?

There are two parts to the system If you were going to order it.
The first part is the V. Yes it’s a standard V50 and it will work with any of the V powersources.

The rest of it is a Turn 50 complete modular system with 1 part number and job done.
You can order it as a kit with CWF and without.
As a complete system you get a control unit with it. This is the unit I photographed in the first post.

 

[Munkul]

To go back to this... because I'm very intrigued... which part is the master controller?

I.e. does the Turn 50 tell the CWF and the V50 when to start their respective programs? Or does the the V50 tell the turn 50 and the CWF to start/stop? Could you tie the V50/CWF in with any decent inverter-driven rotator to achieve the same thing via start/stop digital inputs? Or are the "brains" of the operation in the rotator?

Something that I'll probably never need to do, but I'm interested in as possibilities