Patent ID: 7853435

Claim:
A welding system, comprising: a welder operatively coupled to a remote system, the welder comprising: a sensor component that receives information, comprising information associated with operation of the welder from test equipment and information associated with weld characteristics from monitoring equipment, wherein the monitoring equipment is at least one of a digital camera or a streaming video camera; a control component that receives the information from the sensor component and performs at least one test sequence based at least in part upon the information received from the sensor component; and a diagnostic component that: receives the information from the sensor component and at least one result of the at least one test sequence from the control component; performs internal diagnostics on the welder based at least in part on the information from the sensor component and the at least one result of the at least one test sequence; determines a health status of the welder based at least in part on the information from the sensor component, the at least one result of the at least one test sequence and the internal diagnostics; initiates a corrective action based at least in part on the health status of the welder; and sends information associated with the health status of the welder to the remote system via a network interface, wherein the remote system comprises an expert component that receives the information associated with the health status of the welder and facilitates welding diagnostics using at least one modeling technique, wherein the at least one modeling technique is based on at least one of a Bayesian model, a probability tree network or fuzzy logic, and wherein the expert component adaptively modifies the at least one modeling technique based at least in part upon a success of one or more previous welding diagnostics.