The conventional method for this is to look through a welding hood but this is a heavy burden on the operators on longer productions and so a camera could provide the solution.
High light intensity
Because the intensity of light in welding is very high, this is not easily possible for a standard camera with a lens to image properly. However, Vision Partners was able to solve this by applying special dark filters that allow only 0.1% or 0.01% of the intensity to pass through.
For the camera itself we use a compact semi-industrial camera with a direct VGA output which can be connected directly to a monitor. The advantage here is that no additional PC is needed for the image and the whole setup remains Plug&Play.
The buttons on the back of the camera allow fine adjustment of the intensity of the recording so that the operator can see exactly those details that are important to him/her in the welding process.
To show the quality of the weld to the operator even after welding, we have a 2e VGA camera set up behind the welding process and without the additional dark-filter. This so that the operator can directly assess the quality of during and after welding enlarged on 2 screens side by side.
"Tracking the automatic welding process has become less strenuous for our operators with this well-priced camera allowing them to keep up the work longer and enjoy their work more."
