There are many types of fans, and axial fans and centrifugal fans are two common types. The quality of the welding between the fan casing and the impeller directly determines the fan’s quality and appearance. Traditional automatic welding equipment struggles to perform automated welding due to its inability to track the weld seam in real time, often relying on manual welding instead.
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Challenges in Fan Blade Welding
The efficiency and quality of mainstream seam-tracking welding methods are often not satisfactory. When using a positioning method, the curvature of the fan blades may require multiple points to be located before welding can begin, making the positioning welding process time-consuming. If a tracking method is used, the teaching and debugging process is difficult, with frequent interference and unstable weld point tracking. As a result, the welding cycle time and the final results may not meet customer requirements.
Weld Navigator System Solution for Fan Blade Welding
The Weld Navigator system provides a solution for (axial-centrifugal) fan blade welding, offering the following advantages over traditional positioning tracking welding methods:
- No teaching required, no programming needed, simple operation and easy to learn.
- Automatically detects the welding start and end points for full welding.
- Real-time 3D scan image display.
- Compatible with both axial and centrifugal fans.
- Welding on both sides through offset adjustments.
- No need to consider the impact of arc light.
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Introduction to Fans
There are many types of fans, with axial fans and centrifugal fans being two of the most common. Axial fans are mainly used for ventilation, air exchange, or heat dissipation, and are commonly found in metallurgy, chemical industries, light industry, food processing, pharmaceutical equipment, mechanical equipment, and civil buildings. Centrifugal fans are widely used for ventilation, dust removal, and cooling in factories, mines, tunnels, cooling towers, vehicles, ships, and buildings; ventilation and induced draft for boilers and industrial furnaces; cooling and ventilation in air conditioning and household appliances; drying and sorting of grains; wind tunnel air sources, and inflation and propulsion for hovercrafts.
Fan Blade Scanning System Introduction
The Weld Navigator fan blade scanning system is based on the Advantech Baoyuan system robot, which can automatically weld both axial and centrifugal fan blades. The robot, in conjunction with a high-precision distance sensor, scans the entire weld seam, generating point cloud data. This data is then uploaded to the industrial computer software, where the weld seam trajectory is calculated and identified, and six points are sent to the robot to perform the welding. The positioner controls the robot for cyclic scanning and welding.
During use, the main task is to teach the robot scanning points, establish communication, and then run the program directly for automated scanning and welding.
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Role of the Fan Blade Scanning System
Weld Navigator’s independently developed no-teach scanning system for fan blades has brought a revolutionary breakthrough to the fan industry, enabling automation and unmanned operations. This reduces the number of welders while improving welding quality and efficiency. After welding, the system ensures the strength and appearance of the weld seam without the need for manual polishing. This system changes the traditional drawbacks of centrifugal fan manufacturing, such as being low-end, labor-intensive, and difficult to mass-produce.
