Adopting New Welding Technologies
Technology has progressed at an amazing rate over the last 10-15 years, heralding advances in welding performance, productivity and quality once thought impossible, or at least improbable.
Before the advent of inverter technology in AC TIG welding, for example, maintaining a tight, focused arc on thin aluminum without burning through or warping the material was like building a car that got 60 miles to the gallon: a great idea, but not something anyone believed was realistic.
In both cases, technological advancements made the seemingly impossible a reality. It’s exciting to think about what will be a reality in 15-20 years that is now considered out of reach.
There are many other advancements in welding technology — Accu-Pulse® and Regulated Metal Deposition™ (RMD), to name a couple — that have likewise made huge improvements in productivity, efficiency, and overall profitability.
We would like to know what your experience has been with these and other new technologies. Have you found them easy to adopt, or has it been a rough transition? Do you wonder how you ever TIG welded aluminum before the inverter — the same way some people wonder how they ever researched anything without the internet—or do you long for the old days of 60 Hz sine waves?
Share your experience with delving into advanced welding technologies by posting a comment below.
Average (Not Rated)
September 10th, 2008 at 12:28 am
As a kid in an office I can remember handing out spare radio tubes to the sub arc operators when their machines would act up. Yes things have progressed a long way. We have easily reduced the man hours involved in welding as well as raising the level of quality.
Several years ago inverter machines came into our shop. the owner expressed the belief that these new machines would weld twice as fast. I challenged him on that point. What the machines did do is eliminate a massive amount of constant repairs trying to patch up twenty year old wire feeders and power supplies.
The real burr under my saddle is that we were not allowed to use pulse arc as it was not an approved procedure and would have cost my employer thousands to qualify on so the pulse mode was never used.
What I see as the next great barrier is the massive consumption of labour and time in handling the material. We keep looking to weld faster but it takes just as long to fit, handle and load trucks. The gain is no longer worth the effort.