Today I had the pleasure of speaking to a local breakfast club. Normally my talks are technical in nature and best suited for engineering types. I suspected this crowd had different tastes. So I took to opportunity to wax nostalgic and talk about how the combination of Houston and robotics have given me a career which I have thoroughly enjoyed for over 40 years.
When the robot’s working envelope is too small for your project you need a RTU. At ARC we design and build RTUs to fit your needs.
Eight is (much) greater than six when it comes to robot axes. In this episode, we showcase how a two-axis part positioner with coordinated motion will allow your six-axis robot to do things no human can.
Lauren Caldarera works with Anne Whitlock at https://lnkd.in/eq6UpqM as a small business incubator. One of Lauren’s current projects leverages the skills of refugees and immigrants who have relocated to the Houston area.
Regular viewers of Weld of The Week seem to enjoy both cutting-edge as well as older technology. This episode showcases an odd old technique. I would like to read your comments if you are familiar with it.
I have made a good living building machines that make welded coatings on a variety of parts around the world. Welding creates strong metallurgical bonds between the coating and the part. But there is another way: thermal spray.
Last week Craig McCormick stopped by to check on his ‘bot. While he was here he asked: “Why do all the ARC people wear red? And why are all the machines painted blue?”
No other arc welding process allows you to make full penetration welds on a variety of metals up to 3/8” thick without a bevel and without filler material. The arc punches through the part creating the “keyhole”, molten metal fills behind the arc making narrow deep weld through the entire section.
We use Tab & Slot construction in our weld shop to fabricate our robotic manufacturing systems. I was introduced to the technique by Richard Holdren who had applied it in the shipbuilding industry.
Plasma Transferred Arc Welding (PTAW) is a great process for robotic joining and overlay. The tightly columnated arc focuses the arc energy in a small area, making torch height less critical. The tungsten electrode is protected. So you change the tungsten less and weld more. PTAW allows the use of powdered filler materials, so you can weld all sorts of composite and exotic metals.
