At the end of last year, we received a call from a customer who was using EXAIR Super Air Knives to create an air curtain intended to protect the lens of his robotic welders from weld spatter. The EXAIR Super Air Knife achieved this thanks to its design, which ensures an even laminar airflow along its entire length. While this considerably extended the life of the welder lens and reduced maintenance time, further optimisation was still the goal.
Production increase of 50%
The trigger was the customer’s challenge (one of the 3 largest car manufacturers) to increase production of welded seat frames by 50%. Although the EPUTEC Super Air Knives had already greatly reduced lens maintenance, further improvements were urgently needed to enable a further 50% increase in output.
The solution: the EPUTEC Super Air Wipe
This led to an evaluation of whether the EPUTEC Super Air Wipe could be used. Although it is mainly used for drying and cleaning long, continuously moving products, its airflow pattern was able to direct the weld spatter downwards and away from the lens. In the end, this proved to be more effective protection for the lens than the laminar air curtain of the EXAIR Super Air Knife.
After installing the EPUTEC Super Air Wipes, the customer had improved the production rate to 750 pairs/day in three-shift operation, 24 hours a day, 5 days a week. That corresponds to a productivity increase of 156%, far exceeding the 50% target!
Before the Super Air Wipe was used, the maintenance department cleaned the upper slide on the laser welding head three times a day, at approx. 20 min x 3 times a day x 6 days/week, i.e. 6 hours/week. “With the Super Air Wipe, we’ve found we can weld for 10 days before we clean the slide,” says the customer.
In 10 weeks of operation they have not replaced a single slide, as the Super Air Wipe has virtually eliminated pitting from weld spatter.
In addition, the slides are now cleaned on Saturdays during the maintenance team’s off-production time rather than under the pressure of production hours.
The savings on maintenance and replacement costs in complex manufacturing environments alone mean the EPUTEC Super Air Wipes pay for themselves within a short time.