Harris Industrial Gases - Welding Equipment & Supplies

Can You Guarantee That Your Parameters Are Accurate — Everytime?

In our line of work, welding fabrication, we are always looking for ways to keep our weld quality consistent. This isn’t always an easy task. We are often training new welding operators, occasionally with limited experience, and our challenge was – how do we ensure that the new welders are welding at the same consistency and quality that we require?

And, we always have to consider quality issues at an even higher level – weld breaks. If a weld breaks and you have no way to determine if your parameters were met and followed, we could open ourselves up to a lawsuit. However, if we can guarantee that our parameters were absolutely held, the weld break would be an accident, not negligence.

We found a solution that has worked well for our welding company. We use “lockouts” found on many newer wire feed equipment. This technology allows us to pre-select a minimum and maximum amperage and voltage setting for our welds, which allows each welder to fine tune the arc to his or her liking and still guarantees that all of our welds are performed within certified parameters.

By using the “lockout” feature, out of parameter conditions cannot be caused by the welding operator. This has increased our production and made our company much more efficient. It not only ensures our weld quality, but it also takes away a lot of set-up time from our operators that were trying to find the “right” parameters for a particular project.

Does anyone else have ideas for ensuring weld parameters and weld quality, especially when you lack highly skilled welding operators? Let me know. Vote on the poll question and post your comments.