Systems, methods, and apparatuses for monitoring weld quality

摘要

An arc welder including an integrated monitor is disclosed. The monitor is capable of monitoring variables during a welding process and weighting the variables accordingly, quantifying overall quality of a weld, obtaining and using data indicative of a good weld, improving production and quality control for an automated welding process, teaching proper welding techniques, identifying cost savings for a welding process, and deriving optimal welding settings to be used as pre-sets for different welding processes or applications.

主权项

1. A system for training students learning a welding process, the system comprising a plurality of welding stations, each welding station operable to accommodate one student and including an electric arc welder with a monitor for monitoring the electric arc welder as the student uses the electric arc welder performing the welding process by creating actual welding parameters between an advancing wire and a workpiece to form a weld, said welding process being defined by a series of rapidly repeating wave shapes of command signals for said welding parameters, each wave shape constituting a weld cycle with a cycle time,
wherein said monitor comprises: logic for segmenting each of said wave shapes into a series of time segmented states; logic for selecting a specific wave shape state; logic for reading a selected weld parameter occurring in said specific wave shape state at an interrogation rate over a period of time repeated during the welding process to obtain a data set for said selected weld parameter; logic for calculating a quality value of at least one quality parameter for said selected weld parameter from said data set for each period of time; logic for comparing each quality value to an expected quality value to determine if a difference between said quality value and said expected quality value exceeds a predetermined threshold; logic for weighting said quality value with a magnitude weight based on said difference, and weighting said quality value with a time contribution weight based on a time contribution of said state to its wave shape, if said difference exceeds said threshold; and logic for determining a quality score for said weld based on all of said quality values, including any weighted quality values, obtained during said welding process.