• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to secondary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Home
  • Subscribe
  • Your Membership
    • Edit Your Profile
  • Services
    • Advertising
    • Case studies
    • Design
    • Email marketing
    • Lead generation
    • Magazine
    • Press releases
    • Publishing
    • Sponsored posts
    • Webcasting
    • Webinars
    • White papers
    • Writing
  • Shop
    • My Account
    • Cart
  • About
    • Contact
    • Terms of use
  • Events

Robotics & Automation News

Market trends and business perspectives

  • News
  • Features
  • Webcasts
  • White papers
  • Case studies
  • Press releases

Volvo installs fast Festo spot-welding solution

February 5, 2019 by Anna

Spot welding is becoming ever faster and more reliable, as illustrated by a customer-specific solution installed at Volvo in Sweden.

The ingredients of this special Swedish recipe are electric drive technology and vision systems from Festo, linked to the automation platform CPX.

In the south Swedish town of Olofström lies the most important bodywork plant of the Volvo group.

Five trains with 280 containers full of car body parts leave Olofström every day, heading for the Volvo assembly plants in Gothenburg and Ghent, Belgium, where they are assembled to form complete bodies.

“Most of what you can see of a Volvo comes from Olofström,” explains Leif Winberg, the plant engineer in charge of resistance welding in the Volvo Olofström factory.

This includes load-bearing components like the A, B and C columns, the bumper reinforcement, the front side members, the side impact beams, the cross beams and the roof arch and roof rail, together with doors and frames.

All these components are produced in different versions for the various Volvo models, ranging from the compact V40 through to the S60 saloons and the large SUV with the name XC90.

A key element in bodywork production is resistance welding, since correctly welded sheet metal components play a crucial role in the passive safety of a vehicle.

Within the welding process, there is great potential for increased productivity in the milling of electrodes. The electrodes of welding guns become blunter as they are used to make spot welds and must therefore be milled after approximately 150 spot welds so that they once again enable accurate spot welding.

“Electrode milling operates on the same principle as the sharpening of a blunt pencil,” explains welding expert Winberg.

“In recent years we have found solutions which have enabled us to cut the cycle times for electrode milling by well over half,” continues Winberg.

“There is also a gain in safety, since plant operators no longer have to enter the robot cells after milling in order to adjust the electrodes to the correct position for the spot welds,” adds Leif Lindahl, former Business Development Manager Automotive with Festo Sweden.

For static welding guns, Festo developed a customised pivot arm exactly as per the specifications of Volvo and ABB which brings the electrode milling device, the so called tip dresser, to the electrodes after 150 spot welds have been completed.

The pivot arm is precisely positioned by Festo electric cylinders DNCE. Thanks to freely programmable positions, these electric cylinders are flexible in terms of motion and accelerate gently.

The complete ready-to-install electrical package supplied by Festo includes stepper motor EMMS and motor controller CMMS.

The motor controllers are safely integrated in a control cabinet with the automation platform CPX. The CPX communicates with the motor controllers and with the master control system for the robot installation via Profinet.

Mobile tip dressers are not necessary for the welding guns on the ABB articulated robots. These robots can feed their electrodes themselves to the electrode milling device after 150 spot welds. This freedom of movement of the welding guns opens completely new horizons.

In a first step, the articulated robot brings the welding gun to the tip dresser. This then mills the electrodes. In the next step, the robot swings its electrodes in front of the lens of the Festo vision system.

“The system produces an image which supplies the robot system with all the data necessary in order to position the electrodes correctly to weld the next sheet metal components,” says Winberg. “The vision system is also easy to integrate and simple to commission via parameterisation.”

The system includes not only the sensor system for the acquisition of image data but also a complete electronic evaluation unit and the interfaces (Ethernet/CAN) required for communication with higher-level controllers (PLCs). The vision system itself is accommodated in a housing which is no bigger than a one-litre carton of milk.

In a fraction of a second, the image from the vision system provides data on the alignment of the contact surface, the length and angle of the electrode and the starting point on the sheet metal.

The vision system sends this data to the robot controller, which sets the robot for the next spot welds. “This has allowed us to reduce the cycle times for electrode milling from 35 seconds to just nine seconds,” says Winberg.

“This means that we can almost achieve the same cycle time as a machining rotary indexing table, which is six seconds.”

Considering that there are 300 welding robots installed in Olofström, this marks a further milestone in the hunt for shorter cycle times and thus higher productivity.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Share this:

  • Print
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Reddit
  • Twitter
  • Tumblr
  • Pinterest
  • Skype
  • WhatsApp
  • Telegram
  • Pocket

You might also like…

Filed Under: Features Tagged With: automotive spot welding, festo, volvo

Join the Robotics & Automation News community

Reader Interactions

Primary Sidebar

Most Read

  • Top 20 electric vehicle charging station companies
    Top 20 electric vehicle charging station companies
  • Top 25 vertical farming companies
    Top 25 vertical farming companies
  • Top 25 AI chip companies: A macro step change inferred from the micro scale
    Top 25 AI chip companies: A macro step change inferred from the micro scale
  • Automation and digitalization will re-shape the logistics industry, says DHL
    Automation and digitalization will re-shape the logistics industry, says DHL
  • 30 industrial robot manufacturers to watch
    30 industrial robot manufacturers to watch
  • John Deere showcases autonomous electric tractor and other new tech
    John Deere showcases autonomous electric tractor and other new tech
  • How to become a G-Code master with a complete list of G-Codes
    How to become a G-Code master with a complete list of G-Codes
  • ABB robots ring in the holiday season at Bloomingdale’s iconic New York flagship store
    ABB robots ring in the holiday season at Bloomingdale’s iconic New York flagship store
  • ADAS: Features of advanced driver assistance systems
    ADAS: Features of advanced driver assistance systems
  • Omron launches its highest-payload autonomous mobile robot
    Omron launches its highest-payload autonomous mobile robot

Overused words

abb ai automated automation Automotive autonomous business cars china collaborative companies company control data design development digital driving electric factory industrial industry kuka logistics machine manufacturers manufacturing market platform production robot robotic robotics robots sensors smart software solutions system systems technologies technology vehicle vehicles warehouse

Secondary Sidebar

Latest news

  • ISO unveils ‘world’s first’ drone safety standards
  • Retailers expected to buy more than 150,000 robots by 2025
  • Collaborative robotics market to account for 30 per cent of total robot market by 2027, says report
  • The mundane revolution: Unexpected innovations in robotics
  • OnLogic unveils new line of mini PCs powered by AMD Ryzen Embedded processors
  • Siemens further expands portfolio and partnerships for industrialized additive manufacturing
  • IBM joins the Mayflower autonomous ship project
  • HP expands and enriches its 3D printing ecosystem
  • NASA launching ‘Robot Hotel’ to the International Space Station
  • Exploring the Present and Future Impact of Robotics and Machine Learning on the Healthcare Industry

Shop

  • Red Geometry Mug $11.00 – $15.00
  • Blue Geometry Mug $11.00 – $15.00
  • Green Geometry Mug $11.00 – $15.00
  • Short-Sleeve Unisex T-Shirt $16.00 – $20.00
  • R&AN T-Shirt – Black $16.00 – $20.00
  • R&AN T-Shirt
    Rated 1.00 out of 5
    $16.00 – $20.00
  • R&AN Mug $11.00 – $15.00

Footer

We are…

Robotics and Automation News was established in May, 2015, and is now one of the most widely-read websites in its category.

Please consider supporting us by becoming a paying subscriber, or through advertising and sponsorships, or by purchasing products and services through our shop – or a combination of all of the above.

Thank you.

Independent

robotics and automation news logo

Archivists

February 2019
M T W T F S S
« Jan   Mar »
 123
45678910
11121314151617
18192021222324
25262728  

Complex

Social

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Google
  • YouTube
  • Reddit
  • RSS Feed

Old-skool

This website and its associated magazine, and weekly newsletter, are all produced by a small team of experienced journalists and media professionals.

If you have any suggestions or comments, feel free to contact us at any of the email addresses on our contact page.

We’d be happy to hear from you, and will always reply as soon as possible.

Future-facing

Communicative

Free, fair and legal

We support the principles of net neutrality and equal opportunities.

Member of The Internet Defense League

Copyright © 2019 · News Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in