how come welding is so tough to automate (how come there’s lots of welders, but factory work was automated)
In: Engineering
I’ve done robotic welding. It’s OK if everything in the process before robotic welding is handled by robots with tight tolerances. If there’s human involvement prior to that then it might fall outside tolerance. Once the robot hits something outside it’s programming it could potentially mess everything up after.
I did robotic welding on toolboxes for truck beds. If the fit wasn’t perfect, welds ran off track, machine got gunked up, tips get burnt up and all kinds of stuff. I had to step in and do some light reprogramming work or finish welding and do touch up stuff.
They also take up significant real estate in the building they are in. There’s also the flexibility of a human VS robot. Every time a new part needs done there’s retooling, programming, tear down and set up for configuration. Where as I can make adjustments on the fly and weld different parts up in a few minutes with minimal down time.
Long and short of it is they are good for repeated process in a significant amount. But short run stuff it’s really not feasible for robotic work.
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