Dear,
We use an UR10 for a welding application. For now, we routed the weld cable over the arm to the weld wire feeder, which is mounted separately from the robot. However, we would like the wire feeder to be on the robot itself, as you see with more conventional robot welders. Does anyone have experience with this? On which arm (upper or lower) would be the best to locate the feeder?
Any and all suggestions are welcome. And maybe I’m not alone wanting to have a welding version of a UR10 robot?
Regards,
Max
Hi Max! I’m trying to find the right person to help you. Give us some time due to holiday!
Hi Max,
There’s three cobot welding versions you might of heard of here in the US. The Vectis Automation system, Hirebotics BotX and Melton machine cobo weld. All systems have a feeder mounted to the table and torch fixed mounted to lower arm or suspended by tool balancer. I.e. not on the robot arm like traditional robots. This is because Vectis, Hirebotics, and Melton Machine spool feed (wire spool/feeder combo) vs barrel/spool feed via a separate feeder. Reasoning is naturally weight on arm other then your typical TCP force. As a result this becomes another factor to deal with due to the robot’s power and force limiting monitoring. So the feeder would have to be lite and not a spool feed combo. Wire Feeders can become pretty heavy on their own from my experience. Traditional robots in automotive typically pull wire from a barrel or spool via a robot mounted wire feeder. Some do a spool feed combo but naturally the larger traditional mig robots can handle the weight of the spool in conjunction with the feeder. With that being said, I haven’t personally seen a UR robot with a feeder mounted to it. One recommendation is, it would have to be mounted on the lower arm because upper arm would make it hard for the feeder to pull wire. The main thing to keep in mind is external forces, COG and payload are very important design factors to take into consideration when dealing with cobots.