Coded and electronically tagged welding wire
AssigneeLincoln Global, Inc.
InventorsGeorge D. Blankenship, Christopher Hsu
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Information pertaining to characteristics of metal welding electrode wire and which characteristics are useful in connection with adjusting welding parameters in an arc welding process and/or selecting between operating modes in a welding system are encoded on welding wire and/or on other memory components such as bar code labels and tags, RFID cards and tags, IC cards, and Touch Memory buttons, and the memory device is scanned prior to and/or at the point of use of the welding wire for enabling tracking of product distribution, manual and/or automatic selection of an operating mode for the welding system, manual and/or automatic adjustment of welding parameters in a given operating mode, consumables inventory, and the like.
Claims39
A method of controlling an electric arc welding process having a plurality of operating conditions and wherein a welding wire is advanced toward a workpiece and a welding arc is established between the advancing wire and the workpiece, including:
- a) providing a stored source of coded information pertaining to variations along the length of a welding wire to be used in an electric arc welding process;
- b) scanning the stored source for extracting coded information therefrom pertaining to variations along the length of the wire;
- and,
- c) controlling at least one of the plurality of operating conditions of said process in accordance with the extracted information.
A system for controlling an electric arc welding process wherein a welding wire is advanced toward a workpiece and a welding arc is established between the advancing wire and the workpiece comprising, a stored source of coded information pertaining to variations along the length of said wire, a code scanner to scan said source and output a signal indicative of coded information thereon pertaining to variations along the length of wire said wire, and a controller operating the welding process in accordance with said signal.
A method of controlling an electric arc welding process having a plurality of operating conditions and wherein a welding wire is advanced toward a workpiece and a welding arc is established between the advancing wire and the workpiece, including:
- a) scanning the advancing wire for coded information pertaining to variations along the length of the wire;
- and,
- b) controlling at least one of the plurality of operating conditions in response to the information extracted from the wire.
A system for operating an electric arc welding process having a plurality of modes of operation and wherein a welding wire is advanced toward a workpiece and a welding arc is established between the advancing wire and the workpiece comprising, a memory device with a stored coded information pertaining to variations along the length of said wire, and a scanner to scan said source and outputting a signal indicative of coded information thereon pertaining to said wire.
A method of controlling an electric arc welding process having a plurality of operating conditions and wherein a welding wire is advanced toward a workpiece and a welding arc is established between the advancing wire and the workpiece, including:
- a) providing a stored source of coded information pertaining to welding wire to be used in an electric arc welding process;
- b) scanning the stored source for extracting coded information therefrom pertaining to the wire;
- and,
- c) controlling at least one of the plurality of operating conditions of said process in accordance with the extracted information, wherein said stored source of coded information is magnetically imprinted on the welding wire and further wherein said scanning is for extracting coded information on said wire in the form of at least one code segment of one of a pulse count, a pulse width, a pulse frequency, and a binary value.
A method of controlling an electric arc welding process having a plurality of operating conditions and wherein a welding wire is advanced toward a workpiece and a welding arc is established between the advancing wire and the workpiece, including:
- a) providing a stored source of coded information pertaining to variations along the length of a welding wire to be used in an electric arc welding process;
- b) scanning the stored source for extracting coded information therefrom pertaining to variations along the length of the wire;
- c) controlling at least one of the plurality of operating conditions of said process in accordance with the extracted information;
- d) providing said coded information on said welding wire;
- and,
- e) scanning the advancing wire for extracting coded information therefrom pertaining to the wire.
A method of controlling an electric arc welding process having a plurality of operating conditions and wherein a welding wire is advanced toward a workpiece and a welding arc is established between the advancing wire and the workpiece, including:
- a) scanning the advancing wire for coded information pertaining to variations along the length of the wire;
- and,
- b) controlling at least one of the plurality of operating conditions in response to the information extracted from the wire wherein said coded information includes at least one code segment of one of a pulse count, a pulse width, a pulse frequency, and a binary value.
A system for controlling the operation of electric arc welding apparatus wherein a welding wire is advanced toward a workpiece and a welding arc is established between the advancing wire and the workpiece comprising, means for scanning said wire and outputting a signal indicative of coded information thereon pertaining to said wire, and control means for controlling the operation of the welding apparatus in accordance with said signal, wherein said coded information includes code segments and the outputted signal is representative of at least one code segment, and a decoder for receiving and decoding at least one code segment.
A method of controlling an electric arc welding process having a plurality of operating conditions and wherein a welding wire is advanced toward a workpiece and a welding arc is established between the advancing wire and the workpiece, including:
- a) scanning the advancing wire for coded information pertaining to the wire;
- and,
- b) selecting one of the plurality of operating conditions in response to the information extracted from the wire wherein the coded information is in a semi-conductor memory chip in electrical contact with a remote end of said advancing wire.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.