Hybrid manual and automated welding

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11065706-B2
Application number	US-201615248084-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Aug 26, 2016
Priority date	Aug 28, 2015
Publication date	Jul 20, 2021
Grant date	Jul 20, 2021

Abstract

Hybrid manual and automated welding systems and methods are described. A hand-held welding tool is manually positioned to engage a workpiece. A weld is started from an initial position based on a first manual operator event. A welding heat source is automatically or autonomously moved along the weld relative to the workpiece from the first position to a second position relative to the workpiece during welding.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A system, comprising:
a housing, and
a hand-held welding tool that is manually placed at a workpiece in a welding position by a handle attached to the housing,
wherein the hand-held welding tool is at least partially enclosed in the housing and configured to be manually activated to cause a contact tip to automatically move within the housing about a fixed pivot point back and forth from a first weld position and to second weld position across an arc of less than 180 degrees during welding, wherein
an actuator forces a spring to compress in the first weld position and releasing the spring to force the contact tip to move to the second weld position, and wherein the contact tip automatically moves independently with respect to a movement or no movement of the hand-held welding tool during welding.

2. The system of claim 1 , wherein a welding current and a wire feed speed used during the welding are concurrently controlled.

3. The system of claim 2 , comprising:
a welding power source operatively coupled to the hand-held welding tool, wherein the welding power source is configured to ramp current up and down in correspondence with a variable travel speed during the welding.

4. The system of claim 1 , wherein a travel speed is not constant during the welding.

5. The system of claim 1 , wherein the hand-held welding tool is configured to provide a linear weld when the contact tip is automatically moved from the first weld position to the second weld position.

6. The system of claim 1 , comprising:
a solenoid assembly configured to control the contact tip and to position the contact tip in the first weld position when the solenoid assembly is energized.

7. The system of claim 6 , wherein the solenoid assembly is configured to position the contact tip in the second weld position when the solenoid assembly is de-energized.

8. The system of claim 1 , wherein the hand-held welding tool includes a second spring and a motion dampener, wherein the second spring and the motion dampener are configured to control a speed at which the contact tip automatically moves from the first weld position to the second weld position.

9. The system of claim 1 , wherein the hand-held welding tool includes a trigger, a button, or a switch to manually activate the hand-held welding tool.

10. The system of claim 1 , wherein the hand-held welding tool is configured such that the movement of the contact tip causes a wire and an output arc to automatically move along a path from the first weld position and to the second weld position along a workpiece.

11. The system of claim 1 , wherein the hand-held welding tool is configured to produces tack welds.

12. The system of claim 1 , wherein the hand-held welding tool is configured to cause the contact tip to automatically move from the first weld position to the second weld position in one or both of a side-to-side motion and an up-and-down motion.

13. The system of claim 1 , further comprising:
a first stepper motor to perform a side-to-side movement of the contact tip; and
a second stepper motor to perform an up-and down weave movement of the contact tip.

14. The system of claim 13 , further comprising a cam follower on a sinusoidal track to perform the weave up-and-down motion as the first stepper motor performs the side-to-side motion.

15. A method, comprising:
manually positioning a hand-held welding tool to engage a workpiece by a handle attached to a housing;
starting a weld from an initial position based on a first manual operator event;
automatically or autonomously moving a welding heat source at least partially enclosed in the housing about a fixed pivot point back and forth from to a first position to a second position in an arc relative to the workpiece during welding, wherein the welding heat source automatically or autonomously moves within the housing independently with respect to a movement or no movement of the hand-held welding tool during welding; and
applying power to the welding tool by constant voltage control to automatically compensate for variations in contact-tip-to-work (CTWD) distance as the welding heat source moves from the first position to the second position during welding.

16. A system, comprising:
a housing, and
a hand-held welding tool that is configured to be manually positioned to engage a workpiece by a handle attached to a housing and to start a weld from a first position based on a first manual operator event,
wherein the hand-held welding tool is configured to automatically or autonomously move a welding heat source that is at least partially enclosed in the housing about a fixed pivot point back and forth along the weld from the first position to a second position in an arc of less than 180 degrees relative to the workpiece during welding, wherein an actuator forces a spring to compress in the first weld position and releasing the spring to force the welding heat source to move to the second weld position, wherein the welding heat source automatically or autonomously moves within the housing independently with respect to a movement or no movement of the hand-held welding tool during welding.

17. The system of claim 16 , wherein the hand-held welding tool is configured to automatically return the welding heat source back to the first position.

18. The system of claim 16 , wherein the first manual operator event includes a manual trigger operation, a manual switch operation, or a manual button operation.

19. The system of claim 16 , wherein the hand-held welding tool is configured to be operated by an operator in a standing position and to be held by the operator during the welding.

20. The system of claim 16 , wherein the hand-held welding tool is configured to produce a linear weld with a weld length of between approximately 5 mm to approximately 100 mm.

21. The system of claim 16 , wherein the hand-held welding tool is configured to produce a short weld with a curvature.

22. The system of claim 16 , wherein the hand-held welding tool is configured to produce a tube-to-tube weld or a circular weld.

23. The system of claim 16 , wherein the hand-held welding tool is configured to perform one or more of the following: gas metal arc welding (GMAW), gas tungsten arc welding (GTAW), plasma arc welding (PAW), laser welding, and submerged arc welding (SAW).

24. The system of claim 16 , wherein the hand-held welding tool is configured to engage a fillet joint using a position sensor or a pressure sensor to ensure engagement of the hand-held welding tool with the fillet joint.

25. The system of claim 24 , wherein the hand-held welding tool is configured to enable or disable a trigger, a button, or a switch based the engagement of the hand-held welding tool with the fillet joint.

26. The system of claim 16 , wherein hand-held welding tool includes a protective guard or enclosure that is configured to shield an operator from one or more of the following: an arc, spatter, splatter, laser radiation, and radiated heat.

27. The system of claim 16 , wherein multiple hand-held welding tools can be operated simultaneously on the same workpiece.

28. The system of claim 16 , wherein the automatic or autonomous motion includes single-axis motion that is linear or rotational.

29. The system of claim 16 , wherein the automatic or autonomous motion includes multiple-axes

Assignees

• Illinois Tool Works

Inventors

• Hsu Christopher
• Sigl Dennis
• Bankstahl Herbert A

Classifications

• B23K9/02 Primary

  Seam welding; Backing means; Inserts · CPC title

• B23K37/0264

  magnetically attached to the workpiece · CPC title

• B23K9/095

  Monitoring or automatic control of welding parameters · CPC title

• B23K9/12

  Automatic feeding or moving of electrodes or work for spot or seam welding or cutting · CPC title

• B23K9/0206

  of horizontal seams in assembling vertical plates, a welding unit being adapted to travel along the upper horizontal edge of the plates · CPC title