Getting to know the possibilities
After a visit to Valk Welding in Alblasserdam, Thomas Straetmans (co-owner of V.M.T.) was impressed by all the new possibilities in robotic welding. "The increased speed, offline programming via DTPS, the Touch Sensing system and the ARP automatic programming software have all proved to be very useful", he says. With these improvements, V.M.T. can use its new robot more efficiently, and even robotic welding of small product series becomes worthwhile.
First steps
V.M.T. has decided to replace its old robot model with a new and advanced Valk Welding FRAME-H concept, which will soon weld more than sixty recurring stainless steel, steel and aluminium products. This begins with the transfer of all existing programs to the TL1800WG3 SAWP Panasonic welding robot, which V.M.T. can easily do using the ARP software. This software detects welds within 3D CAD files and automatically generates a finished robot program. By training their welders through Valk Welding in both DTPS and ARP, V.M.T. aims to gradually increase the number of products by another hundred in the near future, while the welders and programmers become familiar with the technology.
