Robotic Plastic Welding Improves Production Numbers

Plas­tics make up a part of near­ly every­thing man­u­fac­tured and used in day-to-day life. From children’s plas­tic toys to car and air­craft parts, plas­tics are every­where. There­fore, it should come as no sur­prise that the need to weld plas­tic parts has increased in the last decade.

Weld­ing plas­tic parts uses the same basic prin­ci­ples that are applied when weld­ing met­al parts. Heat is applied through var­i­ous meth­ods to the areas being weld­ed until they fuse togeth­er. Some­times the weld­ing imple­ment is required to add addi­tion­al plas­tic mate­r­i­al to the weld to assist in the fus­ing process.

Plas­tic weld­ing can be done by sev­er­al dif­fer­ent meth­ods. Both hot gas and speed tip weld­ing use heat to melt the areas to be joined until they soft­en enough to fuse. Extru­sion and injec­tion weld­ing add addi­tion­al heat­ed weld mate­r­i­al at the weld site to join the two parts. Final­ly, ultra­son­ic and fric­tion weld­ing heat the two parts to be joined by rub­bing them against one anoth­er until they heat up, soft­en, and fuse together.

With all of these weld­ing meth­ods, the line is very thin between heat­ing the plas­tic pieces enough for them fuse prop­er­ly and dam­ag­ing them with exces­sive heat. Because of this, plas­tic weld­ing is an ide­al appli­ca­tion for robots. Robots can rapid­ly, reli­ably, and repeat­ed­ly achieve the pre­cise heat, pres­sure, and motion con­trol nec­es­sary to cor­rect­ly weld plastic. 

Robots also excel in the repet­i­tive, mass-pro­duc­tion envi­ron­ment where most plas­tic weld­ing is done. This saves mon­ey in the form of less wast­ed raw mate­r­i­al and reduced part-cycle times. Robot end-of-arm-tool­ing (EOAT) can be eas­i­ly adjust­ed to accom­mo­date the slight­ly dif­fer­ent plas­tic weld­ing imple­ments, which are basi­cal­ly the same as met­al weld­ing tool­ing, with minor adjust­ments for the low­er heat lev­els required for plas­tic welding. 

Robots​.com can help you choose the right plas­tic weld­ing robot for your pro­duc­tion line. Con­tact us at 877−762−6881 to get more infor­ma­tion on inte­grat­ing one today.