How To Perform Preventative Maintenance on a Welding Robot

Robot­ic tech­nol­o­gy has been a bless­ing to man­u­fac­tur­ing for over 40 years. By using robot sys­tems and work cells, indus­tries like the auto­mo­tive indus­try are able to build vehi­cles more effi­cient­ly than ever before. What once would have tak­en a man­u­al oper­a­tors an entire day to per­form can now be com­plet­ed in a frac­tion of a shift. This amount of uptime makes pre­ven­ta­tive main­te­nance vital to the func­tion­al­i­ty of the robot.

Since these robots are designed to work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week at full speed, they are engi­neered to require min­i­mal main­te­nance. This decreas­es the amount of down­time nec­es­sary to per­form main­te­nance. Also, there is a pos­si­bil­i­ty that a robot can have too much main­te­nance per­formed, which will cause the robot to be over-greased. Adher­ing to a pre­ven­ta­tive main­te­nance sched­ule is just as impor­tant to the oper­a­tion of your weld­ing robot sys­tem as mak­ing sure that you use the prop­er grease. Plus, by con­tin­u­ing sched­uled pre­ven­ta­tive main­te­nance can great­ly improve the up-time and the per­for­mance of a robot­ic weld­ing system.

There are a few sim­ple steps you should check when run­ning through the pre­ven­ta­tive main­te­nance schedule:

Replace weld­ing lin­er week­ly — With a weld­ing robot, the most com­mon wear hap­pens in the weld­ing lin­er. If your com­pa­ny is run­ning your robot three shifts, the weld­ing lin­er should be changed week­ly to elim­i­nate defects dur­ing operation.

Check for worn cables - Watch the robot run through the appli­ca­tion and make note of any cables that are drag­ging, rub­bing, touch­ing clamps, or any mov­ing along any oth­er part of the weld­ing cell or sys­tem. These could become cost­ly prob­lem areas for cable main­te­nance if not fixed. Worn cables should be replaced, and cables should be secured to cut down on excess wear and tear.

Check weld­ing gun tips and noz­zles – Weld­ing gun tips should be replaced dai­ly, and the noz­zle should be checked for weld spat­ter that could buildup and cut down on weld­ing func­tion­al­i­ty. Plus, a fresh con­tact tip on a weld­ing torch will help to cor­rect defects that may com­mon­ly occur dur­ing the weld­ing process. You can also use soap bub­bles to check for any shield­ing gas leaks in your system.

Over­all, pre­ven­ta­tive main­te­nance per­for­mance is a vital part of own­ing and oper­at­ing an indus­tri­al robot sys­tem or work cell, and a good main­te­nance sched­ule will ensure that your robot will last for many years.

For more infor­ma­tion on robot­ic automa­tion or pre­ven­ta­tive main­te­nance, call Robots​.com today online or at 877−762−6881.