Patent ID: 8847100
Filing Date: 2014-09-30
Classification: B23K

Abstract:
1. An apparatus for assessing characteristics of a weld cap comprising: a welding robot including at least one weld cap with a weld cap tip; a machine vision sensor generating image data representing said at least one weld cap tip; and a control pendant having a visual screen configured to simultaneously display said at least one weld cap in response to the image data and a form of visual measurement for visually comparing said at least one weld cap to weld cap threshold measurement data, said control pendant in communication with a control system having a processor and a data storage, said control pendant being separate from and connected to a robot controller of the welding robot to permit an operator to operate the welding robot and teach the robot controller operation programs, said data storage storing the weld cap threshold measurement data representing a definable threshold of at least one predetermined characteristic of said at least one weld cap, said control system performing an assessment of the at least one predetermined characteristic of said at least one weld cap by comparing the image data with the weld cap threshold measurement data stored in said data storage, and said control system generating an alarm when the definable threshold is exceeded.