A welding cart with a cable management system may include a frame, a shelf adapted to support a welding machine, a plurality of upright members, a plurality of wheels supporting the cart, one or more pairs of holders disposed on one or more sides of the cart, and a removable bar that may be releasably secured to the one or more pairs of holders. The bar may be releasably secured to the holders via a pin-and-hole mechanism and may have a hook adapated to hold welding equipment such as cables. The bar may be releasably secured to a first pair of holders disposed on a side of the cart or a second pair of holders disposed on another side of the cart. This system provides additional, easily accessible storage space for welding tools and accessories while still being compatible with a wide variety of portable welding machines.

Disclosed herein is a rotational roller apparatus for use with a pipeline unit. The pipeline unit is received in a pipeline for welding and/or inspection. The rotational roller is attached to and is able to support at least a portion of the weight of the pipeline unit. The rotational roller unit also includes an extension member and a reduced friction base. The reduced friction base is attached to an end of the extension member so that the rotational roller has a retracted and an extended configuration. In the extended configuration, the reduced friction base contacts an interior of the pipeline and supports at least a portion of the weight of the pipeline unit and thereby allows the unit to be rotated about a longitudinal axis within the pipeline.

A 3D printer can print a structure by depositing material into a weld pool that is moving relative to a workpiece. An electrode wire can supply energy to the weld pool while being fed at a first feed rate into the weld pool. A second wire can be fed into the weld pool at a second feed rate to deposit additional material and thereby speed up the overall material deposition rate. All of the energy in the weld pool may be supplied by the electrode wire. The printer can dynamically control the first feed rate and the second feed rate during printing. A mathematical model can be used to determine the second feed rate as a function of the first feed rate, the energy put into the weld pool, and the print head travel speed. The second feed rate may optimize the material deposition rate according to the model.

A method for providing a referenced distance signal which corresponds to the distance between a contact tip of a welding torch and a workpiece to be machined, includes adjusting an operating point on a predetermined welding characteristic, which is defined at least by a wire feed rate, a welding voltage and/or a welding current, and a CTWD distance between the contact tip and the workpiece; determining a target parameter value of at least one parameter dependent on the CTWD distance for the operating point; determining an actual parameter value of the at least one parameter by measuring at least one of the present wire feed rate, welding voltage and/or welding current; modifying the determined actual parameter value as a function of a calculated difference between the target parameter value and a predetermined reference value; and outputting the referenced distance signal corresponding to the modified actual parameter value to a position control system of a robot arm.

The presently disclosed technology includes a friction stir welding apparatus comprising a frame, a moving platform and a parallel mechanism composed of three branch mechanisms, wherein a first branch mechanism comprises a first sliding pair, a first revolute pair, a telescopic rod and a first spherical pair connected in sequence. A second branch mechanism and a third branch mechanism both comprise a third sliding pair, a second revolute pair, a third linkage and a second spherical pair connected in sequence. The friction stir welding apparatus has high stiffness, low inertia, high dynamic performance and high accuracy, which can achieve precision welding with high requirements on processing quality and accuracy for jointing annular seams of large-scale rocket fuel storage tank barrels in the aviation field, for example. The presently disclosed technology also includes a corresponding friction stir welding system.

A movable table system comprising two identical tables on a common rail arrangement having a linear rail region underneath a detection unit and a processing unit, and therefore the tables can be alternatingly moved in a straight line along the common rail arrangement, in the same table-movement direction, fully underneath the detection unit and processing unit, and can be independently controlled by a computer unit. The movable table system provides a new option for processing planar workpieces, in which a particularly high throughput rate and improved precision can be achieved using merely one processing unit.

A method including: a first step of forming a mask member having a structure in which a magnetic metal member provided with through-holes is in tight contact with one surface of a film; a second step of forming a plurality of preliminary opening patterns by subjecting the film to penetration processing by irradiating laser beams at predetermined regular positions in the plurality of through-holes; and a third step of performing laser processing so as to form each opening pattern over the corresponding preliminary opening pattern, is provided.

A welding window device includes an elongated body that defines a welding cavity that extends through the body from a top side to a bottom side. The welding cavity is framed by an inlet end, an outlet end, and lateral sides of the body. The body includes one or more gas channels inwardly extending through one or more of the first lateral side or the second lateral side from an inlet opening in the inlet end toward the outlet end of the body. The gas channels include nozzle openings inwardly oriented toward the welding cavity. The gas channels are positioned in the body to direct a gas into the welding cavity during welding of other bodies together within the welding cavity.

A computerized method is provided for selecting a direction of formation of a slag puddle on a workpiece during processing of the workpiece by a thermal processing torch. The method comprises causing the torch to emit a thermal arc to gouge the workpiece at a first location without piercing through the workpiece. The method also includes translating the torch from the first location to a second location along a first direction on the workpiece while the torch is gouging the workpiece, the first direction substantially along the selected direction of slag puddle formation. The gouging and translating cause formation of a trench in a surface of the workpiece in the first direction. The method further includes causing the thermal arc emitted by the torch to pierce through the workpiece at the second location, which causes the formation of the slag puddle along the selected direction as guided by the trench.

A robotic welding systems and related methods are described. In some embodiments, a robotic welding system may generate a target trajectory based at least partly on a trajectory of a welding torch during manual operation of the welding torch; and operate one or more actuators of the system to control movement of the welding torch based at least partly on the target trajectory.