Welding apparatus with snap lock mechanism for housing parts.

摘要

A welding apparatus (10) having a system to facilitate its assembly. The apparatus is assembled by affixing a pair of molded end panels (14,16) to a molded base (26) and each of the end panels (14,16) has a specially constructed receptacle area (50) that is adapted to receive an end of the base (26). Each end of the base (26) has a pair of snaps (42) that extend outwardly and which engage with a correspondingly located pair of ramps (60) formed in the receptacle area (50) of each of the end panels (14,16). Thus the assembly is easily carried out by simply inserting the base ends into the receptacle areas (50) where the snaps ride (42) up the ramps (60) and engage the vertical walls on the inner side of those ramps (60) to securely affix the end panels (14,16) to the base (26). Preferably the snaps are U-shaped in configuration with the distal end of the snaps being the closed ends of the U-shaped snaps. <IMAGE>