How to Avoid the Common Mistake of Touching Up Points on a Robot

There are sev­er­al dif­fer­ent mis­takes that oper­a­tors can make when learn­ing to oper­ate a robot. Some of these mis­takes are easy to avoid in a few sim­ple steps. One of the most com­mon of these mis­takes is touch­ing up points on the robot.

When a robot­ic weld­ing appli­ca­tion begins to pro­duce defects, it is impor­tant to fig­ure out what is caus­ing the defect quick­ly so the prob­lem can be cor­rect­ed. There are a vari­ety of steps that a pro­gram­mer should go through to cor­rect those defects. How­ev­er, touch­ing up points, which may be the operator’s first incli­na­tion, should actu­al­ly be the last thing done to the robot. Since robots are accu­rate and repeat­able with­in thou­sandths of an inch, if points are off, then some­thing in the sys­tem has changed. With­out fig­ur­ing out what that change is, touch­ing up points will not fix the problem. 

Here are some steps to run through to find out why points may be off on your robot­ic weld­ing system: 

Trou­bleshoot the Sys­tem – First, you have to trou­bleshoot your sys­tem. What is off – the robot, the tool, the part, or the tool­ing? With­out this step, it will be hard to under­stand why the defect is happening. 

Run the Robot at Datum Zero Point – So, how do you go about trou­bleshoot­ing the sys­tem? Run the robot to a pro­grammed datum zero point. This will allow points on the work cell to be checked, ver­i­fy­ing that the valid­i­ty of the robot’s align­ment and rul­ing it out as a poten­tial cause. If the robot miss­es a datum point, it could mean the weld­ing gun or tool point is off, and the tool point brack­et on the wrist should ver­i­fy the tool point. If the robot hits the datum point, but miss­es the weld­ing joint or part, the prob­lem could lie with the parts or tool­ing, and not the robot arm itself. 

Check the Mas­ter Part – The Mas­ter Part is a part that nev­er gets weld­ed or used. It is only used for pro­gram­ming pur­pos­es and ver­i­fy­ing pro­grams. When you use the mas­ter part, you will be able to deter­mine if the points are miss­ing align­ment because of the part or the tool­ing. If the mas­ter part has all the points hit prop­er­ly, then the prob­lem is not the tool­ing. If the mas­ter part has all the points miss align­ing, then the prob­lem is either the exter­nal posi­tion­ing of the part or tooling. 

If you fol­low these steps, it will help oper­a­tors pre­vent always touch­ing up points when a defect occurs, and it will vast­ly improve the up-time and per­for­mance of your robot­ic sys­tem dur­ing operation. 

For more infor­ma­tion, con­tact Robots​.com today online or at 877−762−6881.