Miller on Optimizing Weld Cells: Secondary Circuit Wear
, by Jim Ryan, 1 min reading time
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It's great to see good, in-depth articles on weld cells from vendors, such as the one by Tregaskiss on reducing downtime that we discusses a week ago, and this one by Miller is another example.
In the article, Miller points out that the cabling and circuitry running from the power source to the weld joint - the secondary circuit - gets worn by weld slag and heat and, degrading, suffers voltage drops that can ruin welds. The article gives astute advice about how to design the cell to minimize the secondary circuit's vulnerability - positioning the leads out of the path of the return current, minimizing the cables' length, and so forth. Miller also recommends a secondary compensation circuit that will measure and report voltage drops in the primary and then compensate for those drops.
This is all very well and good. But it makes me think of someone who is going to suffer a terrible blow and is advised to brace himself for it and purchase a first aid kit in advance. It's good advice, but how about a helmet? How about armor?
Weld Dynamix offers cables and cable protection that do not let weld slag cause any problem at all? Our cables are coated by Activstone, so weld slag slides off. For cables that you can't or don't have time to replace with ours, there is our Activflex cable protection which installs in seconds over your existing cables without disconnecting them. All this keeps the sensor cables, ethernet cables, etc. protected so that they do not burn out. If Activflex can fit in with your cell so that it can cover your secondary circuit cables, they would be protected, too.