Smart Bridgewire Welding

SMAC Moving Coil Actuators and Bridgewire Welding and Soldering

In welding, maintaining the proper distance as the weld melts is critical.

SMAC Advantages for Welding and Soldering:

• Consistent and even welds.
• Apply pressure without breaking the surface.
• Performs a task and provides analytical data so that you can monitor the task was done correctly the first time.
• Utilizes SMAC's patented Soft-Land.

Case Study: As an example, SMAC actuators were used to do wire  welding  on air bag ignitors. Previously, the manufacturer had a  weld  tip  attached to a spring  tab. An air  cylinder  holds  the  spring  tab  up, during the weld cycle and the cylinder  moves  out  from  under  spring  tab  which  then applies a set force on the wire to weld. SMAC  was  already  doing  this kind of application successfully with an OEM so the manufacturer gave SMAC a try.

Each  part  change  required  a  mechanical  set-up  of  precise  distance  from  the weld  surface. Many  parts  can  be  ran  before  an error  was  caught. The SMAC  Solution was to use  an  LCS25-010-52  to  move the weld  tip  up and down, which eliminated the spring tab and air cylinder, eliminated the mechanical adjustment with part change because the LCS25  uses a Soft-Land on the part so relative position up for home is automatic, and the force applied was programmable for quick dial-in results. Customer ran weld tests using 2 actuators on a line machine. Test results were very successful.