Patent ID: 9393637
Filing Date: 2016-07-19
CPC Classification: B23K

Claim Text:
1. A welding system, comprising: an engine that rotates a shaft coupled to a rotor/stator assembly; a brush in contact with a portion of the rotor/stator assembly; a member that is in contact with the brush parallel with a direction of wear of the brush; a controller that activates a notification based on the member coming in physical contact with the rotor/stator assembly; a transparent portion on a housing of the welding system; a spring coupled to a brush assembly that forces the brush in contact with the portion of the rotor/stator assembly; an indicator affixed to the brush assembly, wherein the indicator is visible through the transparent portion on the housing; and wherein the indicator depicts visual indication of the wear of the brush on a gauge; a controller in communication with the brush, wherein the controller calculates a resistance of the brush to determine an amount of wear for the brush, wherein the controller includes a notification component and communicates an alert to the notification component based on the calculated amount of wear, wherein the controller periodically collects a resistance level for the brush to estimate the amount of wear and graphically represent the amount of wear at the notification component.