Amada Miyachi Blog

"Ugh - my battery just died!" "Can I use your charger?" "Mind if I recharge my phone?"  Batteries are everywhere, and we've become increasingly dependent on them in many aspects of our daily lives: portable electronic devices, cordless power tools, energy storage, and hybrid and EV cars. Thus, the demand to manufacture batteries that meet or exceed quality and production requirements for these products, is great.

Resistance spot welding, micro TIG welding, and laser welding processes all enable high quality volume production.  The selection of one technology over another is usually made based on the application's specific requirements and the alignment of the technology to these needs.

The Medical Design & Manufacturing (MD&M) West exposition and conference is the place to be this week if you want to see the latest innovations in equipment and systems for medical device manufacturing. Despite all the doom and gloom you hear about the manufacturing sector, the medical device industry has been on fire for the last decade, and shows no signs of let up.  Innovations in technology are on the rise as everyone is looking to do things smaller, faster, and more reliably. I like to stroll the aisles looking for what’s 'just out.' If you do too, drop by Miyachi Unitek’s booth - #3051.

I recently posted a blog about closed loop welders and how you can get the most out of using them, and it occurred to me that some of you may not be familiar with the different resistance spot welding power supply technologies, how they work, and what they can be used for. So here is a short description of the four different types, including both closed loop and open loop designs.

If you read my recent blog on heat balance, you know that there are five different techniques that can be used to balance weld heat that don’t  involve making changes to materials or part design.  And at the end of the blog I mentioned that if you’re still having difficulty after trying all five of the techniques, you may want to consider adding projections to one of the parts.

Equipment calibration may not be the most exciting activity, but it can go a very long way in saving you both time and money by reducing plant down-time due to process control fluctuations.

All right folks.  Let’s cut to the chase.  Successful resistance welding boils down to heat balance:  getting both parts up to their bonding temperature at the same time.  If too much heat goes into one part, and not enough into the other, the overheated part can become weak, and the weld won’t be strong.

What’s the fastest and easiest way to improve your manufacturing welding processes? That’s simple: use a closed-loop resistance welding power supply! And you’re thinking “okaaay…what’s ‘closed-loop’ and why do I want to use it? I know why you want to sell it – it’s a higher end power supply that costs more money, but exactly how will that help me in my process?” Well, I’m going to tell you.

What is closed loop? At a high level, closed-loop resistance welding power supplies use current and voltage feedback sensors to precisely control the energy delivered to the parts. This ability to accurately control weld energy is a key factor in overcoming problems associated with process variation and the rapid changes in resistance that happen during the weld.

Just a few posts ago, I shared some information on online and mobile apps that help take the guesswork out of material weldability. Since that post, I’ve gotten some feedback that leads me to believe a lot of people would like a bit more on the basic questions of “what electrodes should I use for spot welding?” and “can I spot weld (material A) to (material B)?”