Tighter control of welding process variables, ease of equipment use with a high degree of process versatility, and improved weld consistency are just a few of the benefits of applying Waveform Control Technology™ to a wide range of welding requirements.
In the past, most of the guesswork in welding occurred when trying to match welding parameters to the specific material being welded. When most welding was done by the SMAW ("stick" ) process, the operator only had to worry about one variable, the welding current. As more productive wire welding processes were introduced, they brought with them the need to monitor both current and voltage. With hundreds of different material types, including high- strength, low-alloy steels, plus an ever-growing choice of electrodes, it has become extremely difficult for the operator to set specific welding procedures.
Add to this the need to control welding results more closely than ever, to achieve consistency in the strength and metallurgy of welded joints that are being held to ever-tighter standards, and it becomes obvious that much better control of the welding arc is a necessity.
To achieve these results, it became necessary to develop new power sources that would do the thinking for the operator and actually control the electrode current throughout the welding cycle. These advanced power sources blend the sophistication of computers with the power of inverter technology. They control the waveshape of the current to deliver the exact characteristics needed at any given instant in the welding process, through what has come to be known as Waveform Control Technology.
The concept of precision waveform control began in 1985 at The Lincoln Electric Company of Cleveland, OH. This breakthrough led the company's team of engineers to develop a series of inverter-based welding power sources, including the firm's most recent introduction, the Power Wave® 455 (Fig. 1). These machines are at the forefront of welding technology for pulse GMAW (Gas Metal Arc Welding). They use Lincoln Electric's patented Waveform Control Technology to control every aspect of the welding output, manipulating waveforms by sophisticated internal control software. In addition, other machine control variables are automatically coordinated, to simplify the process and improve overall quality. The operator only needs to select one variable, wire feed speed, to achieve complete control of the system.
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