Understanding Torch Mounts

There are two types of mount­ing options avail­able for weld­ing jobs: over-arm and through-arm mounts.

Through-Arm Torch Mounting

The more com­mon set-up today for robots today is the through-arm sol­id mount. This pro­vides for a much ​“clean­er” end of the torch and pro­vides for clear­ance in tight areas when reach­ing down inside of fix­tures. Brack­ets and fit­tings are also elim­i­nat­ed, pro­vid­ing for a reduc­tion in over­all hard­ware. Pro­gram­ming headaches are less fre­quent as through-arm tech­nol­o­gy has proved to be more modern. 

Through-arm torch­es can use col­li­sion mounts or sol­id mounts. 

Col­li­sion mounts enable ear­ly and quick detec­tion of a col­li­sion and will shut the torch off if the swan­neck con­tacts any fix­tures, per­sons, or oth­er mate­ri­als. This pro­vides a reduc­tion in dam­age if an acci­dent would occur. 

You could also choose a sol­id mount and install col­li­sion soft­ware that will offer the same process­es through an exter­nal con­troller. When the con­troller sens­es a brief rise of motor amper­age out­side of the expect­ed range, the robot will then pre-emp­tive­ly shut down as a pro­tec­tive measure.

The final eval­u­a­tion of a sol­id mount includes under­stand­ing how strong and repeat­able it is by look­ing at the dow­el pins, the dow­el pin size ver­sus posi­tion, the mate­r­i­al of the sold mount, and the mate­r­i­al thick­ness of the flange going onto the robot.

Over-Arm Torch Mounting

Over-arm torch­es were the pio­neers of robot­ic weld­ing.

This set-up can put the torch at obscure angles in tight places that could not be accom­plished with a through-arm. How­ev­er, the process requires a bit of mod­i­fi­ca­tion and time. 

Over-arm mounts do pro­vide easy main­te­nance as the entire torch pack­age is out­side of the arm and parts can be main­tained and fixed quick­er than through-arm. Fur­ther­more, over-arm mounts use a series of dow­els and form the basis of a shock sen­sor which can take a direct impact in the Z direction. 

They use a sol­id mount or col­li­sion mount. Just like through-arm, it is impor­tant to make sure the robot has on-board col­li­sion sensing. 

Then, it is impor­tant to look at and under­stand the mount pat­terns, torch angle, and clear­ance. A good mount will be the strong point in the event of a crash as it is less time-con­sum­ing to replace a dam­aged torch neck than torch mount.

If you choose a break­away style for a torch mount, the effec­tive­ness relies on prop­er instal­la­tion. It is impor­tant to choose the cor­rect adapter plates and prop­er spring pres­sure for the torch/​equipment weight.

Torch Mount Best Practices

It is impor­tant to real­ly study and under­stand the repeata­bil­i­ty, ease of instal­la­tion, and how the mount arm clamps to the col­li­sion sen­sor with your robot­ic system. 

Eval­u­at­ing the mount­ing accu­ra­cy will pro­vide a bet­ter and more con­sis­tent prod­uct. Reli­able robot weld­ing torch mounts will have con­sis­tent repeata­bil­i­ty to min­i­mize any nec­es­sary rework­ing and ulti­mate­ly keeps the pro­duc­tiv­i­ty high. 

Regard­less, the set-up of both styles should eval­u­ate sol­id machine sur­faces and a min­i­mum num­ber of bolt up com­po­nents as this will lead to a more sol­id and repeat­able mount­ing structure.

Con­tact Robots​.com

For more infor­ma­tion on torch mounts, con­tact the rep­re­sen­ta­tives at Robots​.com online or at 877−762−6881.