Welding station
AssigneeLincoln Global, Inc.
InventorAndrew Caldarone
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A robotic welder designed to efficiently weld a workpiece together which includes a three-sided structure to support a plurality of workpiece components, and an index and rotating mechanism designed to move the work support surfaces into a desired position. The welding system is designed to minimize idle time of the welding operations and to increase the efficiencies of the operators during the operation of the welding system.
Claims49
A method of welding components of a workpiece together comprising the steps of:
- (a) providing a welding table adapted to support the components of said workpiece, said welding table including a first, second and third work surface;
- (b) providing a loading station to load said workpiece components onto at least one work surface, a welding station to weld together said workpiece components, and an unloading station to unloaded said welded workpiece from at least one work surface;
- (c) rotating said welding table about a longitudinal axis to move said first work surface to said loading station, said first work surface at said unloading station being offset from a vertical axis of said structure at about 0-90.degree.;
- (d) loading said workpiece components onto said first work surface at a loading station;
- (e) securing said workpiece components onto said first work surface at said loading station;
- (f) rotating said structure about said longitudinal axis to move said first work surface from said loading station to said welding station, said first work surface at said welding station being offset from said vertical axis at about 0-60.degree.;
- (g) positioning a welder onto said workpiece in a preselected manner to weld said workpiece components together at said welding station;
- (h) rotating said welding table about said longitudinal axis to move said first work surface from said welding station to said unloading station, said first workpiece support surface at said unloading station being offset from said longitudinal axis at about 0-30.degree.;
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- (j) unloading said welded workpiece from said first work surface at said unloading station.
In a welding system adapted to weld a workpiece together comprising a welding table to support and move said workpiece between a loading station and a welding station, and a welder adapted to weld together said workpiece at said welding station, said improvement comprising said welding table including at least a first, second and third work surface, a rotating mechanism adapted to rotate said welding table in substantially one direction about a longitudinal axis extending generally parallel to said work surfaces and substantially at the center of said welding table, and an index mechanism adapted to index said welding table about said longitudinal axis to position said first work surface from said loading station to said welding station.
A welding table for supporting and moving a generally flat workpiece between a loading station and a welding station, said welding table comprising a three sided frame having first, second and third generally flat work surfaces arranged in a generally equilateral triangle, means for rotatably mounting said frame about a longitudinal axis extending parallel to said work surfaces at the center of said triangle, and means for indexing said first surface from said loading station to said welding station.
A welding table for supporting and moving a workpiece between a loading station and a welding station, said welding table comprising at least a first, second and third work surfaces, a rotating mechanism adapted to rotate said work surfaces about a longitudinal axis of said welding table, said longitudinal axis extending generally parallel to said work surfaces, and an index mechanism adapted to index said work surfaces about said longitudinal axis to position said first work surface from said loading station to said welding station.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.