I. The core bottleneck of traditional welding in steel structure factories: the dual predicament of efficiency and quality
The pain points of manual welding are prominent, and the welding space arm becomes the key equipment to break through the deadlock: In the steel structure manufacturing industry, the welding process directly determines product quality, production progress, and enterprise profits. However, the traditional manual welding mode has long been trapped in three core pain points, becoming a "stumbling block" that hinders the development of enterprises. Firstly, the efficiency is low, especially when welding large steel structure components, workers need to frequently adjust their standing positions, bend or straighten their bodies to operate, with an average of 8-10 adjustments per hour, each adjustment taking 3-5 minutes, directly resulting in an increase of more than 40% in the time for single weld seam operation; Secondly, the labor intensity is high. Manual welding requires workers to maintain a fixed posture for a long time, holding the welding gun and bearing the weight of the equipment. After 8 hours of daily operation, workers are prone to arm pain, back and waist strain, which not only reduces the subsequent operation accuracy but also increases the enterprise's labor costs; Finally, the weld quality is unstable. Manual operation is greatly affected by fatigue level and experience level, prone to defects such as weld bulges, incomplete penetration, and edge biting. The qualified rate of traditional manual welding weld seams only remains at around 85%, with a high rework rate, which not only wastes materials but also delays delivery. With the rapid increase in the demand for steel structures in recent years, customers' requirements for order delivery cycles have shortened from the original 15-20 days to 7-10 days. The bottleneck of the traditional welding mode has become more obvious, and many enterprises have fallen into the predicament of "receiving many orders but not being able to keep up with production capacity". At this time, the welding space arm with flexibility and stability gradually becomes the core choice for steel structure factories to break through the efficiency bottleneck.
II. Tai'an Xutai Machinery Welding Space Arm: Innovative Design of Structure and Principle
Multi-joint + stable rotation, the welding boom makes manual welding more efficient: As a manufacturer deeply involved in welding equipment and possessing authoritative technology in the industry, Tai'an Xutai Machinery, in response to the actual needs of workers in steel structure factories for welding, developed the welding space arm. In its structural design, it focuses on "convenient operation and stable reliability", completely solving the limitations of traditional manual welding. From the structural perspective, the welding space arm adopts a multi-joint architecture, and the arm body is made of high-strength steel, which not only ensures sufficient load-bearing capacity (can stably adapt to different specifications of welding machines and welding guns) but also has flexible rotation performance. Workers can easily adjust the direction by manually pushing the arm body without the need for additional auxiliary components, and the stability of the arm body during movement is strong, effectively avoiding weld seam deviations caused by shaking, providing stable operation support for manual welding.
From the operation perspective, the welding space arm is operated by various methods such as hydraulic, spring, and electric, and the equipment is equipped with a dedicated operation handle. Workers only need to hold the handle and directly push the welding space arm to freely adjust the height, angle, and operation position of the welding gun. Whether it is the top surface, side of large components, or complex corners, it can quickly find the welding point position through manual fine-tuning; The joint parts of the arm body are equipped with damping adjustment devices, which can adjust the pushing resistance according to the worker's operation habits, avoiding the arm body from sliding on its own and not increasing the burden of manual operation. Welders can start using it without training, fully matching the operation habits of traditional manual welding, reducing the threshold of equipment use.
Xutai Machinery's welding space arm is used in conjunction with the wire feeder: The wire feeder is fixed on the arm body of the welding space arm through a dedicated bracket, and when the worker adjusts the position of the welding space arm, the wire feeder can move synchronously with the welding gun, completely solving the problem of "holding the welding gun with one hand and adjusting the wire feeder with the other hand" in traditional manual welding, avoiding unstable wire feeding caused by dragging the wire feeder, making the manual welding process smoother, and significantly reducing the labor intensity of workers.
III. Practical Application of Welding Space Arm: Specific Paths for Efficiency Improvement in Steel Structure Factories
From human fatigue to efficient operation, the welding arm helps upgrade production capacity: After being put into actual production in the steel structure factory, the welding space arm has been verified to have an effect on improving efficiency in multiple cases. This can be specifically reflected in the three dimensions of "time, quality, and cost". In the time dimension, the welding space arm significantly reduces the ineffective time during operations - in traditional manual welding, the time spent by workers adjusting positions and calibrating the welding gun accounts for 30% of the total operation time. However, the welding space arm reduces this time to less than 5% by its multi-joint flexible adjustment. For example, when welding a 10-meter-long H-shaped steel component, traditional manual welding takes 4 hours to complete, while using the welding space arm only takes 2.5 hours, resulting in a 37.5% increase in efficiency; at the same time, because the welding space arm can be used in a shift system to achieve 24-hour continuous operation (without worrying about human fatigue), the daily production capacity of some steel structure factories has increased from the original 8-10 components to 15-18 components, completely solving the problem of "tight delivery deadlines". In the quality dimension, the stability performance of the welding space arm significantly improves the weld quality - the stable wire feeding of the wire feeder ensures the uniformity of the welding gun's movement path, avoiding deviations from manual operation, and the weld qualification rate increases from 85% to over 98%, with the rework rate reduced by 90%. For a steel structure factory with an annual production capacity of 5,000 tons, it can reduce material waste costs due to rework by approximately 200,000 yuan per year. In the cost dimension, the welding space arm not only reduces labor costs but also reduces equipment wear and tear. In traditional manual welding, the damage rate of the welding gun due to frequent collisions and improper positions is relatively high. However, the precise positioning of the welding space arm can reduce the wear of the welding gun by 30%, and over the long term, it can save a large amount of maintenance costs for the enterprise. For steel structure factories, the welding space arm is not a simple "equipment upgrade", but a core solution for achieving "dual improvement in production capacity and quality".