Loading patent…
AssigneeHitachi Zosen Corporation
InventorsTeruo Nakano, Hideji Ohtani, Kunio Miyawaki, Shigeo Mogi
Estimating the term…
An automatic welding apparatus including a robot which comprises a base, a rotary support rotatably mounted on the base, a pair of first arms pivotally movable together and rotatably supported each at its one end by the rotary support, a second arm rotatably supported by the other ends of the first arms at an intermediate portion close to its one end, and a hand connected to the other end of the second arm and rotatable about two axes intersecting each other at right angles. A core wire is supplied from a feeder to a welding torch attached to the hand of the robot. A control device controls movement of the robot, operation of the core wire feeder and power supply to the welding torch. When the forward end of the welding torch comes into contact with the work to be welded, with the core wire drawn into the torch, the resulting short-circuiting is detected to detect the position of the work. The amount of the core wire to be projected from the torch is controlled with reference to the position of the work thus detected.
A method of controlling an automatic welding apparatus comprising a welding torch for welding the work to be welded, a robot for movably supporting the welding torch, a feeder for supplying a core wire to the welding torch, and a control device for controlling supply of power to the welding torch, movement of the robot and operation of the core wire feeder, charaterized in that the method comprises the steps of causing the robot to move first until the forward end of the welding torch comes into contact with the work with the forward end of the core wire drawn completely into the torch, subsequently causing the robot to move so that the forward end of the welding torch is brought away from the work by a predetermined amount, and thereafter causing the core wire feeder to inch the core wire until the forward end of the core wire is projected from the welding torch into contact with the work.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.