November 3, 2017 - UltraFlex Power Technologies has recently announced the release of Dragon 15 - their induction brazing robotic arm, which is designed to fully automate the brazing process for copper to copper, copper to steel, brass to copper and aluminum tubes.
Dragon 15 consists of an UltraFlex W15 (15 kW) induction heating system integrated with a Universal Robots (UR 5) cobot. Making a tube joint takes between 4 and 8 seconds, based on the tube size and the type of brazing alloy. The system operates with brazing rings (pre-forms) or, alternatively, can be integrated with an automatic wire feeder to achieve a fully automated brazing process. Using precise automated positioning of the robotic arm and controllable heat applied through the coil mounted onto it, Dragon 15 can automatically braze multiple joints, ensuring a repeatable process for brazing. Further quality control is achieved by monitoring the energy applied to braze each joint and comparing with reference value.
The brazing robot can be reprogrammed to accommodate different process requirements - coil power, heat cycle, coil positioning, different production line speed, etc. Finally, the induction-based robotic brazing introduced by UltraFlex is designed to be an environmentally clean and safe process eliminating the hazardous flames or toxic gasses present in the conventional brazing techniques.
