MAG-WELDING LIKE GREASED LIGHTNING
Stahlbauer Waagner Biró
Especially in robot welding high-output welding processes are regularly pushed to the limits. As a consequence wire feeding speed is increased significantly, sometimes doubled, in this case up to 35 m/min. Furthermore constant wire supply has to be ensured throughout the whole welding process. Due to the wear of liner and contact tip, the friction-coefficient and the electric resistance change.
The new WIRE LUBRICATION SYSTEM by PROTEC coats the wire electrode with a contact lubricant which is transported to the contact nozzle on the wire electrodes surface.
The use of the contact lubricant “Welding Wire Balm PROTEC WLS04” is leading to longer life-time of contact tip and liner. This enables robot welding installations to work with maxi-mum process stability throughout several shifts without any down-times by parts replacing operations.
The following improvements are achieved by this method, compared to conventional „dry“ wire electrode processing:
- constant resistance of electrical transition
- reduction of friction and less wear of contact tip
- prevention of electro-erosion in contact tip
- long and constant life-time of contact tip
- reduction of static friction by up to 50 % through-out whole wire feeding process, “quick starts” without burnbacks at any speed
- reduction of sliding-friction coefficient by up to 40% throughout whole feeding causes less wear, less slippage and constant wire supply
PROCESS STABILITY: All the above mentioned facts result in a substantial improvement of process stability in MAG-welding and MIG-brazing processes.
SOLUTION: Felts lubricated with Welding Wire Balm PROTEC WLS04 are fixed onto the wire in front of the feeder with clips.
PROTEC WLS04 is available in 200ml cans, shipped with felts and clips for application
TEST ON THE SPOT
The Welding Wire Balm was tested in the production depart-ment of Waagner Biró, an Austrian steel construction com-pany, namely in the production of bar shear connectors for hydro power engineering.
Welding wire type 1.4370, known for its bad feedability, was used. Additionally the liner of the robot torch could not al-ways be set up ideally due to the size of the workpiece. Of-ten the quality of firm or narrow welds was poor. This was caused by instable wire feeding and unprecise positioning at the beginning of the weld. Problems with overlapping of weave beads, mainly poor bonding, may also have been caused by instable feeding. In a long-term test with PROTEC Wire Balm the deficiencies of bond in overlap areas of weave beads were eliminated. 800 kg of welding wire type 1.4370, Ø 1,2 mm were proc-essed in this test. Life-time of liner and contact tip was app. five times higher.
