A major application for Kawasaki Robots is spot welding. Robot mounted spot welding gun operating on stationary parts are common to automotive manufacturing. Stationary guns with robot manipulating the part are also being used for smaller parts such as automotive doors.

Kawasaki has time saving features built into the C-controller. These features cut down on programming time and overall cycle time for both pneumatic and servo (7th axis) spot welding gun applications. The C-controller can talk directly to different weld controllers via various communication protocols.

Spot Weld Gun

Pneumatic spot welding utilizes an air cylinder to produce the clamping force for the welding electrodes. The C-controller gives the operator two positions in which the weld gun can open. The first position is completely open and the second position is partially open. The partially open position cuts down on cycle time, because the gun does not have to open fully before the robot starts its next movement.

Servo spot welding uses an additional servo motor and encoder (7th axis) of the robot to drive and control the clamping force of the welding electrodes. Using a spare robot axis to actuate the weld gun gives added benefits than a pneumatic weld gun. First, a wider range of clamping pressures can be controlled for different materials and thicknesses. Reduced cycle time can be achieved by having full control of the stroke of the weld gun. Along with this, it gives a low impact condition when contacting the work piece at the beginning of a weld sequence. This gives a longer life span of the electrodes. Another benefit would be that it is much quieter than a pneumatic weld gun. Also, less expulsion results from servo spot welding.

Both of these weld guns can be gun changer compatible. This means that one operation can use more than one weld gun per robot.

Pedestal welding uses a fixed spot welding gun and a robot with a material handling end effector. The robot manipulates a part through the pedestal welding gun. This allows for material handling and spot welding with only one robot and no gun changer. This weld gun can be either pneumatic or servo. Kawasaki has special software features to simplify programming in this configuration.

Examples of Applications:

• Automotive body panels
• Household appliance housings
• Lawn and garden equipment
• Office furniture
• Cooking utensils

Robots:

• ZX - Series
• ZT - Series

Application Videos

UX150 Robot—Spot Welding

ZX200 Robot—Spot Welding Car Body

UX150 Robot—Spot Welding Cell