• LinkedIn
  • Youtube
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Phone: (651) 644-7273
  • Toll free: (800) 774-1336
  • Contact
  • SDS Library
  • Credit Application
  • Careers
  • Buy Now
Oxygen Service Company
  • Gas and Supply
    • Bulk Gas
      • Nitrogen
      • Argon
      • Oxygen
      • Bulk CO2
      • Hydrogen
    • Industrial Gases
      • Argon
      • Acetylene
      • Carbon Dioxide
      • Helium
      • Hydrogen
      • Propylene
      • Nitrogen
      • Oxygen
    • Specialty Gases
    • Pipeline Nitrogen Services
    • Fuel Gases
      • Hydrogen
    • Energy and Chemical Industry
    • Food and Beverage
  • Dry Ice Supplier
    • Commercial Bulk Dry Ice
    • Dry Ice Retailers
    • Medical Dry Ice
    • Dry Ice Used For Food
    • Dry Ice Blasting
  • Welding Services
    • Welding Equipment Rental
    • Welding Repair Service
    • Welding Inspector Services
    • Cryogenic Piping Systems
  • Welding Supply Store
  • Industries Served
    • Construction
    • Metal Fabrication & Manufacturing
  • Robotic Automation
    • Robotic Welding
    • Material Handling
    • Automated Cutting Systems
    • Positioning Equipment
  • About Us
    • Blog
    • Resources
    • Meet The Team
    • Partners
    • Areas We Serve
      • Duluth
      • Saint Paul
      • Willmar
      • Sauk Rapids
      • Eau Claire
    • Testimonials
    • Careers
    • Ecommerce Platform
    • Fab Show
  • Menu Menu

Creating a Welding Machine Preventative Maintenance Checklist

robotic welding operator using machine to determine efficient welding processes

Welding robot maintenance is a vital part of owning and operating an industrial robot system or work cell—but performing preventative maintenance is a daunting task. Creating a welding machine preventative maintenance checklist is a best practice to ensure you don’t miss any crucial steps.

Steps To Include in Your Robot Maintenance Checklist

Check for Liquid and Weld Spatters

Look for signs of liquid and weld spatters on the floor near your machine. If you notice spatters, you either have a loose or broken fitting, damaged hoses, or hard tubing.

Hoses and electrical wire coating can crack over time. Once hoses and electrical wire are damaged, the UV light emitted during the welding process breaks down their components and causes droplets of liquid to appear on the floor. Damaged or exposed hoses and wires are subjected to weld spatter, droplets of molten material generated at or near the welding arc. Weld spatter can build up over time and degrade or destroy your air and hydraulic clamps. Spatter can also burn a hole through your machine’s tubing, resulting in a fire.

Protective covers like fabric sheaths extend the life of your flexible hoses without restricting their movement. Consider fabric sheaths to protect hoses routed through and on the robot, end-of-arm tooling, or fixed-tooling stations. You should also consider a more fire-resistant hydraulic fluid when using high-pressure hydraulic tooling.

Inspect Your Hardware

Inspect your welding robot’s hardware and its surrounding tooling for signs of loose or missing bolts. Visually confirm that all applicable safety covers are in place. If your robot uses oil instead of grease, check the sight glass for a quick inspection of your machine’s fluid level and color. Low fluid indicates a leak, and darker fluid confirms high temperatures or contamination.

Listen for Air Leaks and Grinding

Listen for air leaks in your welding cell. Air leaks indicate a burned air line or loose-fitting. If possible, listen to your equipment while running production. Grinding noises or unusual vibrations could mean you have a mechanical problem.

Ignoring welding robot maintenance can result in costly repairs, but with Oxygen Service Company, you get a quality repair service that doesn’t break the bank.

Contact Us Today

Check the Master Position

Ensure that your welding robot’s master position and user tool values are located correctly before production. Some tools available can perform these functions automatically on a set interval.

Replace Batteries

If your robot uses batteries to back up its position or programs, replace them regularly, usually yearly. Replacing your machine’s batteries ensures they are always fully charged, preventing production downtime and improving efficiency.

Ensure Cleanliness

Confirm that your machine’s control cabinet, its fans, and ducts are clean and debris-free. If you operate a fabrication shop where cutting and grinding operations are nearby, make sure airborne contaminants don’t get inside the controller and onto exposed circuit boards. The dust and oil can lead to a short or fire.

Backup Your Software

Back up your robot software regularly. With the complexity of today’s systems, it’s easy to decrease production time with a few inefficient programming techniques. By restoring a previously functioning backup software, your welding robot can revert back to its previous software quickly.

Replace Welding Liners

The most common welding robot component that wears over time is its liner. If you’re running your robot in three shifts, you should change the liner weekly to eliminate defects during operation.

Check Worn Cables

Watch the robot run through production, making a note of any cables that are dragging, rubbing, touching, or moving along any other part of the welding cell. Cables contacting other machine components lead to costly cable maintenance. You should replace worn cables and secure them to decrease excess wear and tear.

Replace Guns, Tips, and Nozzles

Replace your welding gun tips daily. Check the nozzles for weld spatter that could build up and cut down on functionality. A fresh contact tip on a welding torch helps correct defects that commonly occur during the welding process. You can also use soap bubbles to check for any system shielding gas leaks.

Providing You With Quality Robot Maintenance

It’s crucial to have your welding machine and cutting equipment serviced for preventative maintenance. Through Oxygen Service Company’s welding robot maintenance program, rest assured your equipment is always functioning properly. Schedule these services up to one year in advance to guarantee optimum performance and productivity. Whether you need annual, semi-annual, or quarterly maintenance, OSC’s factory-trained technicians have the skills to inspect, calibrate, test, and repair your equipment fast and efficiently. And when you’re a part of our maintenance program, we provide you with an inspection report after your service is complete. Contact us today to learn more.

Categories

  • Dry Ice
  • Manufacturing Systems
  • Robotic Automation
  • Specialty Gases
  • Welding
  • Welding Maintenance

Contact Us Today

"*" indicates required fields

Company

About

Meet The Team

Partners

Careers

Solutions

Gases

Dry Ice

Supplies and Equipment

Services

Credit Application & Agreement

Contact

1111 Pierce Butler Route
Saint Paul, MN 55104

Phone: (651) 644-7273
Toll free: (800) 774-1336

View All Retail Locations

Website by Abstrakt Marketing Group © 2022
  • Sitemap
  • Privacy Policy
  • LinkedIn
  • Youtube
Explaining Welding Robot Cell Designswelding robot cellwelding operator reviewing equipmentWhat Is Spatter in Welding?
Scroll to top

This site uses cookies. By continuing to browse the site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies.

OKLearn more

Cookie and Privacy Settings



How we use cookies

We may request cookies to be set on your device. We use cookies to let us know when you visit our websites, how you interact with us, to enrich your user experience, and to customize your relationship with our website.

Click on the different category headings to find out more. You can also change some of your preferences. Note that blocking some types of cookies may impact your experience on our websites and the services we are able to offer.

Essential Website Cookies

These cookies are strictly necessary to provide you with services available through our website and to use some of its features.

Because these cookies are strictly necessary to deliver the website, refusing them will have impact how our site functions. You always can block or delete cookies by changing your browser settings and force blocking all cookies on this website. But this will always prompt you to accept/refuse cookies when revisiting our site.

We fully respect if you want to refuse cookies but to avoid asking you again and again kindly allow us to store a cookie for that. You are free to opt out any time or opt in for other cookies to get a better experience. If you refuse cookies we will remove all set cookies in our domain.

We provide you with a list of stored cookies on your computer in our domain so you can check what we stored. Due to security reasons we are not able to show or modify cookies from other domains. You can check these in your browser security settings.

Other external services

We also use different external services like Google Webfonts, Google Maps, and external Video providers. Since these providers may collect personal data like your IP address we allow you to block them here. Please be aware that this might heavily reduce the functionality and appearance of our site. Changes will take effect once you reload the page.

Google Webfont Settings:

Google Map Settings:

Google reCaptcha Settings:

Vimeo and Youtube video embeds:

Accept settingsHide notification only