The Unimation robot was programmed, using a ‘programming gun’ in the shape of the robot, which made it possible to activate push buttons in this robot shaped gun, in order to move the robots into its position. Linear and circular interpolation between programmed points was not known at that time and all programming was done, using a ‘teach ribbon’ with a maximum distance of 1 inch (25,4 mm.) between 2 points.
The memory capacity of the robot was extremely restricted and with even using an external memory 8 times 128 positions could be stored into the memory.
The development of welding robots have taken an enormous evolution, however thanks to those pioneers like company Kemi, present robot technology has developed so fast. Also company Kemi has been very active in innovating their machine park and have, in the meantime, a third generation arc welding robot, which was installed in 2005 (see Valk Melding 2008-2, side 4).
In the archive we found 2 original films and a user manual from the welding robot at Kemi in action, please see following links.
