What's Your Favorite Arc Welding Robot Setup and Why?

    Hey Gang - I know, I know, way too open ended of a question in the Subject line.


    BUT I routinely program Fanuc, Epson, Denso, Nachi, and UR robots, and have experience with a couple more brands - the only ones of which offers real weld options Fanuc and Nachi. And while I like Fanuc, they are definitely not the cheapest game in town, especially when you start tacking on options (I've heard rumors their adaptive seam tracking is the cost of another robot all on its own.) And I can't seem to tell if Nachi doesn't have a lot of options for these, or if the information is just tricky to find.


    Because I'm flexible and really have no fear of learning another robot at this point: what's everyone's go-to or system of choice for Arc Welding applications?


    This is going to be a robot on a 7th axis, servicing two positioners - so I need 9 axes of motion total. I'm starting to think that adaptive seam tracking (by whatever acronym it may be known by a certain manufacturer) is going to be a requirement. I prefer Ethernet/IP, but can live with point IO if necessary.


    Everyone has a model with the reach I need, and apart from that, it's just a "what am I most comfortable with" type of question - and I just don't care at this point.


    If there's one that does the job and is significantly cheaper than the other manufacturers, I like that. If there's one that's expensive but has boatloads of cool options that make it a marvel of manufacturing, I might go that way.


    Essentially, I've got too many options in front of me, and no real resources to pull information from, ignoring the manufacturer's sales people.


    Would love whatever input you have - Thanks All!

    You did not talk about the welding rectifier - do you have some favorites?


    What I suggest: make up an issue list

    - welding equipment

    - welding tasks

    - Interface robot to welding equipment

    - whatever You think, that could be important


    With this list check the robot manufactures to see what they can apply and offer

    Fanuc likes Lincoln power supplies for arc welding , motoman use to be able to communicate to about any major arc welding power supply, the ABB's i had used miller power supplies ,

    not sure what Kuka uses maybe Fronius power supplies , OTC uses their own power supplies, not sure what Nachi uses but they are similar to OTC robots

    what i have seen Fanuc has come down a lot for their weld packages

    i would suggest whatever brand of robot you purchase have them completely dressed out to the welding power supply - then get training from integrator on the whole system or have welding power supply vendor there to show you all

    but the biggest thing is that the robot works with the power supply and have control over the weld parameters from pendent and password protected for different levels that will keep the arm engineers out of weld parameters

    but yes support and how fast you can support will need to asked

    for spot welding Obara weld guns or Dengensha weld guns are good not sure if centerline has spot guns but their stuff is good also

    I would say ABB with Fronius CMT, ABB has a new Add-in option so you can select programming mode which means controlling the parameters through the Teach pendant, very versatile or you can use job mode which you just call a job number and use the parameters stored in the Power source. The Add-In means you can be connected to the welder using Robot studio and you can edit all the parameters through you PC/Laptop, copy jobs, name etc.

    I have previously used Yaskawa with Miller/Fronius and SKS, ABB with Miller,SKS. And Cloos, with Cloos power source, I find the ABB Fronius combination a great combination personally.

    Panasonic.


    They pretty much just make welding robots so they are optimized for just that, everything is done with welding in mind. (like buying a multipurpose manual welder vs a dedicated tig welder... if all your doing is TIG then the dedicated machine will be the better choice) They use their own power source and waveforms which I found to be good. I don't know for sure but i think they are fairly reasonable price wise too.


    They also make their own positioners that interface nicely with the robot.


    I have used ABB, Fanuc and Motoman. If it came down to specifically welding I'd take a Panasonic over the others.

    We are using Yaskawa robots and ESAB power sources.


    The welding programs are put in with the U82 from the power source and put into the robot program

    by just calling the program number.

    It's an easy solution when the welder has no experience with robotics.


    Also the welding torches from ESAB (TBI) are very sturdy build.

    This is what i do, that doesn't mean it's the right way to do it. :smiling_face:

    This is going to be a robot on a 7th axis, servicing two positioners - so I need 9 axes of motion total. I'm starting to think that adaptive seam tracking (by whatever acronym it may be known by a certain manufacturer) is going to be a requirement. I prefer Ethernet/IP, but can live with point IO if necessary.

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