CASE STUDY: Laser Weld Monitoring
Robot Remote Laser welding system achieves 148 welds in 45 seconds with 100% weld inspection.

Process: Laser Weld Monitoring
Industry: Automotive
Parts: Seating Components
Company: Tier-One Automotive supplier

Project Results
Robot Remote Laser welding system achieves 148 welds in 45 seconds with 100% weld inspection.  Each welds being monitored for “PASS” or “FAIL” conditions.

Challenges
Customer requirements to inspect 100% of the 148 laser welds being placed by the remote Laser system.  This was the first Precitec weld monitoring system and HighYag RLSK laser optic head integrated in the World.

100% Laser weld monitoring at these speeds demanded hi-speed weld monitoring equipment that Precitec could deliver with the LWM weld monitor.    

Tennessee Rand successfully engineered, fabricated, programmed, and installed this system at a Tier-One Automotive supplier in the US.  Experience in laser welding was vital for this challenging project.  As the individual components were stamped from thin material, they were not flat and required forming in the tool to ensure part to part contact.  Tennessee Rand’s tooling experience and laser system integration provided a tooling solution that closed the gaps and was dimensionally repeatable and in house controls experience in laser system integration to marry all the required systems together.

The cell was equipped with a Fanuc 2000i robot, IPG 4Kw Fiber laser, HighYag RLSK scanning optics and a PRECITEC LWM Weld Monitoring system.  This was the first integration of the HighYag RLSK and PRECITEC LWM Weld monitoring system in the World.  The combination of Tennessee Rand laser integration experience, and equipment from PRECITEC allowed for 100% weld inspection of every weld being placed on the panels.  This combination of equipment resulted in the cell achieving welding speeds of approximately 7 meters per minute.