well Im getting ready to buy a robotic tig welder. right now I am considering the ax-v6l from http://www.capitalrobotics.com I will be using it for manifolds, downpipes, dumptubes, charge lines and intercoolers. Was just wondering if anybody has any experience in robotic welding and any suggestions as to which one I should get.

Thanks -James

 

I believe the guys @ full race have one


Id say i dont think there worth it we do a large amount of welding and we dont have a robot. Just a guy we leave in a cave and poke him with a stick every now and again.

But if you can afford it and make it work

 

Well thing is, I, James, am the only welder for our company. It is a family owned buisness with only 3 workers. My mom and dad run the cnc mill and know nothing about welding. I am also a juniour in high school so I dont have time to work 10 hour days. The big thing is I have to do all the prep work, cleaning, finishing, flattening flanges, grinding smooth, port matching, and shipping on my own and that really takes alot of time away form the manifold construction. With the amount of work I have it is next to impossible to get it all done and take care of school and family matters. To justify paying for the robot I plan on expanding my product line and lowering the price so that I can sell in quantity. I have a couple places locally that I can sell to also.

 

I would say thats well justified esepcailly if you can tech your rents how to set it up once you do all the prep!!!!

Good to hear there are more hard working young ppl out there

Casey - Who goes to work 50 hours or so a week maintain a college schedule along with misc side jobs and OC nonsense

 

You'll be wasting money...
I have used OTC equipment and had HORRIBLE luck with it. I worked at Heil Trailers...maker of the big tanker trucks. They spend $500k on a robot. The thing had so many bugs in it that you could outweld it manually. These robots will weld the same place every time. Therefore, if your weld isn't in the same place on the part EVERY time, the weld will be. So, if one manifold has a weld that's 1/8" off to the side from another, one of them will be a failure. Repairs will cost you more in the long run. I've seen this machine put a weld in places there was no weld joint. You may say it was programming...but it wasn't. Even the guys from OTC came out and couldn't get it working consistently.

Their machine only knows where it moves, and doesn't sense where the part or weld joint is.

This type of robot will do fine for SIMPLE things. For example, if you were able to clamp the turbo fange down and put the collector on it, it would be able to weld around it. Welding the piping is a comletely different story.


And if you get a sort of orbital welder like Arc Machines Incorporated or Liburdi Dimetrics sells, it will not be able to hold onto the pipe when in tight places like a manifold.

BTW, I heard that Heil has a lawsuit pending against OTC since the machine has never performed as it was promised to.

I think you may be dreaming a bit about this. It sounds great in reality, but making it work is just not going to happen. A robot will cost you so much money that you'd have to be running it all day and all night, putting out hundreds or manifolds a month to pay for itself. I don't think you want to compete with SS Autochrome do you?

 

talk about trying to get yourself into some premature overhead.

 

Let me help you out!

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by fastcivicboy &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Let me help you out! </TD></TR></TABLE>

Yeah, me too. Ship them to me and I'll weld them and then ship direct to your customers if you want me to.

 

sorry but we are not hiring anybody. we want to keep it a family owned buisness. that is why i was considering the robot.
well here is a differnt one i am now considering
Panasonic VR-006GXII
http://robots.com/panasonic-vr-006gxii.htm
tell me what you think of this one.

I know with a robot I will have to build lots of fixtures and stuff so that it can weld the stuff. But I think the trade off of building tables and fixtures will be well worth it in the end when I dont have to pay extra people 20$+ an hour to weld for me and buy extra welding machines.

 

those robots still wont do what you want, even with fixtures.

Some things just cant be replaced by humans, like welding a collector. Full-race has there robotic welding and they still weld there collectors by hand.

 

i never said i would have it weld the collectors. i will have it mass produce log manifolds do all the pipe to pipe welding then i weld the pipe to the flanges.

 

also on manifolds such as the elf and my new upcoming top mout equal length i will just have it weld the runners and then i will weld the collector by hand and weld to the flanges.

 

I would still think it'd be cheaper in the long run just hiring an extra fabricator. Like Engloid said, when you're fitting up something by hand, you can't expect to always fit things up the exact same way. You're still going to need someone to watch the robot, and since you're the only one there that knows about welding, you'd be the one to fix something. With an extra set of hands you can be welding and someone else cutting and tacking all of the piping in a jig. Honestly, how large do you see a business growing when you limit it to 3 people?

If anything, it'd be cheaper to outsource the manifolds to an exhaust company.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by backpurge &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I would still think it'd be cheaper in the long run just hiring an extra fabricator. Like Engloid said, when you're fitting up something by hand, you can't expect to always fit things up the exact same way. You're still going to need someone to watch the robot, and since you're the only one there that knows about welding, you'd be the one to fix something. With an extra set of hands you can be welding and someone else cutting and tacking all of the piping in a jig. Honestly, how large do you see a business growing when you limit it to 3 people?

If anything, it'd be cheaper to outsource the manifolds to an exhaust company.</TD></TR></TABLE>

werd...theres no replacement for a human brain to do the deciphering. how can you expect to grow as a business if you dont hire people? i have a family owned business. my dad, mom and i run a ceramics studio. we have wheels with jigs on them, computerized kilns and machines for other ****. but that doesnt its just us doind all the work. in order to be successfull and realistically grow are going to have to hire others. ****, even Wal-Mart is a family business

 

recruit from within. (provided you have more siblings) thats what we did. damn lucky I have 4 brothers hehe

 

Dude...find a good welder that's already employed with a good job and benefits (but no available overtime). Offer him some money to work evenings or something.

You said OWNED... not employed. Just because you hire somebody doesn't mean that you are giving them part of the company. You have to realize that if you can get a person in there to work for $15, and they can make you $30 in sales for each of those hours, you are making a 100% profit on your (labor) investment. That's $30k a year for a person that can (or can be trained to) fit, weld, grind, and so much more than a robot can do.

That robot will not be able to fit, and you will have a hell of a time fitting things consistently enough to get any weld consistency...or even acceptability. Do you want to compete with SS Autochrome, and think you can with 3 people working? It's not going to happen. A REAL person, you can send home when workload is low. You can have him help you with anything. The robot will be sitting still, not paying for itself for 6 hours of an 8hr shift...and the payment on it won't be changing with its lack of usage. You can't fire a robot when it fails to work properly. You can't lay off a robot when business is low. You can't ask it to go pick up some elbows when you run out. Sure, a person may say "It doesn't take breaks either." haha...sure...if you think it will be working while you're on break, you're in for a very expensive surprise.

I know Full Race said have a robot, but I've not seen pics of it or the parts that have been welded with it? I did see pics of one ram horn manifold welded by robot, but havn't seen any more or pics. You can bet if I had a $70k+ robot that was actually in use, I'd be proud of it and show it off as something to help sales. I'm not trying to bash anybody. It very well could be that they had one for a while as a demo and then came to the same conclusions that I'm talking about....that it just wasn't worth it.

I can't stress to you enough that YOUR IDEA WILL NOT WORK!!! I've programmed automated welding machines. They just can't weld heavy walled pipe with any form of acceptability unless you have machined fitups. A place I worked recently spent $75k on a machine. I spent months testing it, along with the company's welding engineer (grad of Ohio State Welding Engineering Program). The machine is sitting, collecting dust, while REAL welders are welding the pipe...and the stuff they wanted to have it weld is not nearly as tightly confined as a manifold.

The companies that sell these robots will tell you how you can just push a button and let it go....but unless you're welding something simple like a box, the machine will kick error codes and stop all the time. A person will have to be there almost all the time to monitor it and restart after errors.

So, you are planning on paying $70k for a machine that will likely not do but 2hrs of work a day. That's 520hrs a year. That's $135/hr for a year, $67/hr if you break it down to 2 years, $33.50/hr if you keep this rate up for 4 years. During that time, how many manifolds do you think YOU can fit up? I really doubt that you will be able to fit up 3 a day...much less sell them.

You missed my point. THAT'S ALL IT WOULD BE GOOD FOR. That machine isn't going to be worth a **** on pipe.
You got it backwards. It would be best for YOU to do the runners and the robot do the collectors. Really...there's a reason that there's so many more people welders than these robots...and it's not because people like to look at grumpy welders all the time or hear them complain about being underpaid.

Ok, so lets dream big...that you can fitup 3 manifolds a day and the profit on each is $60. (hey, it will either be simple manifolds to get 3 a day, which are very competitive in the market with low profit, or they'll be too complicated to do 3 a day.) So, that's $180 profit a day. Ok, now to do this, you'll already be working 8hrs a day. Isn't that what you're trying to avoig already? Well, anyway, $180 profit on the day. That's 8hrs you work, pay yourself $15/hr = $120/day. This drops the overall profit to $60/day. That's ALMOST enough to pay off the machine in 2 years (not figuring in things like consumables, gasses, weld wire, benefits, etc).

If you're running a business and you plan to invest $70k to get a return of $60/day, I'd have to suggest you find a product or another idea that will profit you more.


Hey, there's more!! the time you spend on fixtures. You will have a lot of machining time envolved in making these fixtures. You'll have months of tinkering to get proper fixtures.

SUMMARY:
1) The market for these manifolds is very tight. Profit is being driven lower every day. Many sellers go weeks without one log manifold sale. In order for you to sell 3 a day, you'd have to be cheaper than them all and likely put them all out of business.
2) The robot will take forever to pay for itself, lowering your profit to the point that you're going to have much better options elsewhere.
3) Fixturing will be very time consuming and expensive.
4) Fitup time will be your big bottleneck, and a HUMAN welder can help alleviate this, as well as weld.
5) The robot will not be able to successfully and consistently achieve the goals you have.

This is likely your parents money (or credit) on the line. Even if they can be persuaded by you to do this, I think that you'd be making a HUGE mistake and costing THEM dearly. If you talk them into this, I can promise it will be a failed effort, and you will never live till the end of what they will put you through over it.

I don't mean to sound like a dick, but I just can't stress to you how big of a mistake a robot would be. Hell, if you can fit 3 log manifolds a day, send them to me and I can probably weld them up for $50k a year....INCLUDING welding wire, gas, and other consumables. I'll soak up any cost of my mistakes, whereas a robot will put the "**** up" cost on your back.

And remember, if I was not trying to help, I'd be cussing you now instead of just speaking my mind firmly. I just don't want to see you make this mistake.





Modified by Engloid at 5:49 PM 3/4/2005

 

a big problem with hiring people also is you have to provide insurance, if anything happens on the job you can be sued. there are so many lawsuits that can be filed against you when you own a buisness it is crazy that is the #1 reason why my parents dont want anybody in it other than us. I personally dont have a problem with hiring a few helpers but when I am still living under my parents house and cant provide insurance and want the risk of being sued for some dimwitt choping off his finger there is nothing else I can do.

 

Actually I sell more than 3 manifolds a week. since I have started sponsoring on here on honda-tech I on adverage sell 4 manifolds a week, hell this week alone I have sold 6 most of these arnt on honda-tech but the point is they are a constant source of money for me and when people are buying them I sell them on ebay. Thanks for your words of wisdom I understand what you are getting at now, hopefully I can talk my parents into letting us hire some help as I do know a couple people that would be greatly benificial.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by BmCRace.com &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">a big problem with hiring people also is you have to provide insurance, if anything happens on the job you can be sued. there are so many lawsuits that can be filed against you when you own a buisness it is crazy that is the #1 reason why my parents dont want anybody in it other than us. </TD></TR></TABLE>
If you find a guy to work part time, you dont have to provide benefits. Pay him cash under the table and then you don't have to pay anything if he gets hurt...unless you want to be honest about it. Personally I figure you pay cash money, more than you'd pay normally, and the exchange is that the guy doesn't "legally" work for you, if you know what I mean here.
<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by BmCRace.com &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I personally dont have a problem with hiring a few helpers but when I am still living under my parents house and cant provide insurance and want the risk of being sued for some dimwitt choping off his finger there is nothing else I can do.</TD></TR></TABLE>
Also, look into your state's work comp laws. These laws WERE made to protect workers, but now since big business has leverage in politics, they are used to LIMIT how much a company has to pay for an injury.
<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by BmCRace.com &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote"> Thanks for your words of wisdom I understand what you are getting at now, hopefully I can talk my parents into letting us hire some help as I do know a couple people that would be greatly benificial.</TD></TR></TABLE>
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I can promise you that I'm not wrong on this. I've been welding for one or two years now ( ) and I've been around a little bit. If your parents want to hear it straight from me or ask me questions, send me an email and they can call me or something. Yes, the sales guys will tell you anything to make a sale. They usually get comission and that commission isn't taken away if you aren't pleased. Not only that, but very few salesmen can actually weld or know much about welding. These robots just aren't successful on things like this. As I mentioned, for welding the collectors, it would do fine....but working around a pipe just isn't going to happen.

See, when welding pipe, heat builds up as you weld. The welder has to adjust the heat slowly at times, reading the puddle and its characteristics. The welder has to compensate for different positions...cause welding on top of a pipe is easier than welding on bottom or up the side. Amperage requirements will be different as you progress around a pipe also. Granted, if you are rolling the pipe, you may get by with more consistent amperage, but you won't be ablt to roll these manifolds.

Sales of these manifolds just will not hold up for long enough to pay off a machine so expensive. They'd be better off to look into CASTING a manifold. Material cost will be lower also. There's a guy on Supraforums that has done this, and has made many of them....and is selling them for the supra. You could likely get a company to cast these with an initial investment of less than half what one of these robots would be. This would also eleminate fitup time. You'd then just have to stick the manifold into a CNC mill and machine bolt holes and flange faces. A cnc mill will allow you to turn it on and walk away...whereas a robot isn't going to do that.

 

well I dont only offer log manifolds for sell and soon plan on releasing a full kit for a couple of the v8 guys as I know they are wanting them : ) so that should keep me covered for a while. also I dont plan on doing manifolds my whole life, just till I am out of school then I am getting myself a cnc mill and getting my dad who has 25+ years of experience with them to teach me how to run it. The goal is to release our own line of sleeves, rods, and pistons. A lathe is something we should have in about a year so the pistons will be custom billet pistons and the sleeves will be custom to our spec.

 

I will continue to weld and do manifolds after the mill it is just it wont be my only source for income so if it goes down the drain, no skin off my back.

 

engloid offered to weld the mani's for you. to be honest, i think he is undoubtedly recognized as one of the top handful of welders on HT, and that alone would probably drive your HT sales, knowing that regardless of the design, your manifold's welds would most likely be superior. yeah you could still weld up less of your own for the ebay sales and just ship him the advanced orders. not to mention, you would have absolutely no liability to be concerned with over him being hurt on his own property.

i fabricate all kindsa honda related stuff for a living, and i cant finalize a design to save my life. every other unit is a revision that changes all the sketches and is generally why i havent marketed anything publically. there is always an improvement to come first. the extra work included to change designs around on the fly is another hindrance to robotic welding.

you mentioned your dad is a cnc pro, but i figured i would comment that its a common craze for people to get automated thinking its great. last month i was turning some parts and someone insisted on writing a program since i had about ten to do. very simple btw. 3 guys trying, had errors for hours driving them nuts and finally crashed the machine. i finished before they turned one, and that is the most expensive machine in the shop, as well as the one only one guy is even decent at. cnc doesnt know when the cutter is about to snap or the machine hits a hard spot from welding and is bucking like crazy.

-btw engloid, your pm's still dont work do they?


Modified by mike_belben@yahoo.com at 8:12 AM 3/5/2005

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by mike_belben@yahoo.com &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">-btw engloid, your pm's still dont work do they?</TD></TR></TABLE>
They never have, and I can't figure out why. I can hit the pm button and the box pips up, I can type in text and send, but it's as if the other person never gets it. I never get any reply. I have never recieved a PM from anybody.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Engloid &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">
They never have, and I can't figure out why. I can hit the pm button and the box pips up, I can type in text and send, but it's as if the other person never gets it. I never get any reply. I have never recieved a PM from anybody.

</TD></TR></TABLE>

pop up blocker? what browser?

 

I have IE6
The pop up blocker notifies me every time it blocks one...and gives me the option to see it or not. With the PM's, it doesn't. I get the window that pops up, but it's just as if the person on the other end is just always ignoring me and never replies.