Synchronous welding for water heaters Blumenbecker Slovakia develops robot welding system for Tatramat
The Slovak company Tatramat s.r.o. is one of the best-known manufacturers of water heaters, heaters and heat pumps in Eastern Europe. Since 2004, Tatramat has been part of the German Stiebel Eltron Group.
Because experienced welders are difficult to find and in order to improve the product quality, Tatramat decided to automate the welding station for welding the pressure tanks of water heaters and commissioned Blumenbecker Slovakia s.r.o. with the implementation.
"The automation also involved a change in the type of weld seam," reports Peter Grňo, Managing Director of Blumenbecker Slovakia. "It was stipulated that in future, the seam should take the form of a butt weld. To do this, the parts to be welded must be precisely aligned at an angle of 180 degrees. With our solution, this is ensured by mechanical guide elements for alignment of the fixed parts and monitoring sensors."
As the first step, Blumenbecker Slovakia translated the concept into a 3D model. This allowed the customer to inspect the welding system in advance and make adjustments. Only then was the implementation started. Two synchronous KUKA KR CYBERTECH industrial robots are used to weld the circumferential butt welds simultaneously. The welding technology has been supplied by Fronius, while the optical guidance is provided by a Scansonic laser system specially developed for butt welds.
To save time, the system is equipped with a rotary table. This allows welding to take place on one side while a new part is being positioned on the other. This means that the fixed part is immediately ready for welding when the table is turned. Once the welding process is complete, the robots return to their starting position.
»The Blumenbecker solution helps us meet our claim of being the quality leader in the market.«