ARC REACH TECHNOLOGY

When the old welding equipment is no longer fixable, are you part of a group (or maybe you are the group) who’s responsible for replacing it? Or is one of your tasks to prepare a budget for new welding equipment? Or are you the person who gets asked, can we increase our production and efficiency with new welding equipment? Or are you the person who’s responsible for managing production in the field and/or shop? If you are, then here’s 5 questions to ask. Your answers will help you decide if you’ve got pain points in your welding production.

1. During the day, your welders are making adjustments to the welding machine to fine tune their welding arc. Whenever you have to weld different metals or weld different thickness of metal or weld in different positions, adjustments need to be made to the welding arc. This needs to be done to meet your WPS (Welding Procedure Specs). The question is: are the changes made at the power source or the wire feeder? How often are the adjustments made? How much non-welding time is being used to make these adjustments?

2. The welding leads – how long are they? If they have long leads, the level of voltage will drop. What the dial displays at the power source will be different than what actually gets delivered to the wire feeder. How is the level of voltage drop calculated? How does the welder know when to increase power? And where does he have to go to increase the voltage?

3. Sometimes a wire feeder is quite a distance from the power source. But a wire feeder can’t work on its own; it needs the welding machine’s settings to be correct. Here’s the question: how do you make sure the settings are not changed while he’s welding? Or put another way, how do you lock out unauthorized users?

4. What type of changes can be made at the wire feeder? A lot of wire feeders have only one variable – wire feed speed; voltage is changed at the power source. So if your wire feeder can make changes to the power source, are you running an extra cable (called the control cable) to the power source? If you have extra cables running to the wire feeder, is this a problem? Workers stepping over the clutter of cables on the ground or the control cable getting damaged and now the wire feeder is no longer working properly.

5. How does your power source deal with “dirty” input power? Input power to the welding machine can fluctuate in a building or on the construction site. This can create a domino effect when the welding machine doesn’t compensate for the unexpected change. It now is sending incorrect power to the wire feeder. And the wire feeder has no ability to make any changes; it passes on what it receives. This can affect the quality of the weld.

How do you feel about your answers? Can you see room for improvement? See below to see what Miller is doing to answer those questions.

Miller has a new technology called Arc Reach. This new technology turns the wire feeder and the power source into a well-coordinated team. They work to make sure the welder can make good, consistent quality welds.

How does this happen?

1. The Arc Reach technology turns your existing welding cable (the one that runs between the power source and wire feeder) into a 2-way information highway. (This important information used to come via your control cable). You are now using 1 cable; but best of all, you already have it. You don’t need to buy anything extra.

2. When the wire feeder connects to the power source it does 2 things. One, it locks out unauthorized users. Two, it gives the operator more welding time. How? You make the welding adjustments at the wire feeder. You’ve eliminated the trips to the power source (wherever it’s located).

3. Arc Reach helps welders focus on their welding and supervisors relax. When the wire feeder settings are made, Arc Reach knows that’s how much voltage you want for your welding. It now will calculate the length of your welding lead and make sure that’s the voltage you get. With the Arc Reach technology, it’ll automatically compensate when it needs to. If there are critical welds, the supervisor just needs to check if the optimal settings are showing on the wire feeder display.

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5. Arc Reach is a technology that has to be in both the wire feeder and the power source to work. Miller has put it in their XMT 350 multi-processor. The XMT has always done 2 things very well. One, deal with dirty power. Two, eliminate the worry of what power you needed to be hooked up to. Now, Miller has added an extra ability to their XMT by using Arc Reach technology. The ability to make adjustments to your settings while you’re welding.

6. Suitcase welders have been always been very simple; built to be tough, not smart. By using Arc Reach Technology Miller has been able to produce a Smart Feeder. This feeder is easy to set up and comes with Miller’s more advanced technology.

Arc Reach helps attack some of the big R’s:

- Reduce movement

- Reduce Rework

- Reduce Safety risks

As with all new technology, it’s always good to have a healthy dose of skepticism. Are there real benefit differences? Or is this hyper-marketing? The best way to find out is to ask for a demo.

If we can help you with your decision making, give us a call.

RON-SONS TORCH REPAIRS & SALES LTD

9677-192 ST, SURREY, BC

TEL:604.888.4481

FAX: 604.888.5495

GIVE US A CALL, WE’LL MAKE IT HAPPEN