Vectis Automation has chosen Universal Robots’ UR10e cobot to power the Vectis Cobot Welding Tool launching at FABTECH 2019 in Chicago, giving smaller weld shops a low-risk, easy solution to increase weld capacity, quality and stability.

Vectis is Latin for leverage. Leverage now extended to manufacturers seeking a low-risk, low-cost, easy-to-use answer to increase welding productivity amid the ongoing shortage of skilled labor.

"We are delighted to be selected as the cobot of choice by a welding company with founders having more than 60 years of welding automation experience under the hood"

The Vectis Cobot Welding Tool helps manufacturers boost productivity by reducing the learning curve, deployment time, risk, and cost of robotic welding. Powered by Universal Robots' UR10e collaborative robot, the Vectis Cobot Welding Tool is a portable, safe, versatile, and extremely easy-to-use solution that is even available as a low-risk, no-capital rent-to-own option. FABTECH attendees will be the first to experience the new cobot welder as it debuts in Universal Robots' FABTECH booth B35083 in Chicago, November 11-14, 2019.

"We saw Universal Robots prevail as the undisputed leader in the cobot market, lowering automation barriers through ease of use and fast deployment," says Josh Pawley, director of business development and co-founder of Vectis Automation, that has joined Universal Robots' growing network of Certified System Integrators. "We wanted to build our cobot welder on this platform, providing the same user experience to welders that manufacturers in many other industry verticals now enjoy," he says, adding that the Vectis Cobot Welder is commonly 25-40 percent less expensive than the all-in cost of a small traditional robot welder.

Users of the Vectis Cobot Welding Tool are typically set up entirely by the customer within a few hours of system arrival and welding within 10 minutes of setup - with no programming experience necessary. Vectis' Let's Weld Together™ intuitive programming interface is accessible directly through the UR cobot's own teach pendant. Programs can be created, saved, and later recalled in order to handle the numerous part numbers typical for high mix/low volume shops. The cobot welder can weld thick and thin parts, and the Vectis Weaving Software allows manufacturers to set weave parameters for cleanly tied-in welds with a Weld Template Library that provides parameter starting points for common weld sizes, such as one-click tack welds, square tubes with tight-radii corners, round tubes, and multi-segment paths.

"We are delighted to be selected as the cobot of choice by a welding company with founders having more than 60 years of welding automation experience under the hood," says Stu Shepherd, regional sales director of Universal Robots' North America division. "Vectis' solution meets the ongoing welding requests we receive from customers. We look forward to seeing the company's deep application expertise manifest itself in the cobot realm and can't wait to share this expertise with FABTECH attendees and beyond."

The Vectis system comes with all hardware provided fully integrated onto a 3ft x 6ft mobile modular fixturing cart enabling metal fabricators to bring the cobot to the work, or the work to the cobot with no anchoring nor dedicated footprint required. The Vectis Cobot Welding Tool does not need three-phase power but runs off a 120V wall outlet, the welder can run on anything between 208V and 575V - including 240V single phase.

The cobot welder includes:

UR10e six-axis collaborative robot with 51" of reach.
Intuitive Programming on Universal Robots' 12" touchscreen pendant with Vectis' Let's Weld Together™ intuitive programming interface.
Air-Cooled Welding Torch.
Rhino Cart® by Strong Hand Tools. Includes 66pcs of modular fixturing. Mobile worktable measures 30" x 48".
Miller 20 Series digital wire feeder.
Freedrive Jog Enable Button. Allows the programmer to teach the robot by physically moving the robot to program points.
Miller Invision 352 MPa MIG Welder. Includes Pulsed MIG waveforms and weld parameters controlled by the cobot.
Embedded safety: allows the cobot to safely work alongside humans, without permanent barriers.
Peace-of-mind: 30-day return policy and rent-to-own program.
Free application evaluations: A key part of the Vectis process is collaboratively reviewing applications to provide insight on application viability and how to achieve success in production. The company also offers suggestions on any upstream fabrication issues and/or how it could be redesigned to make it more automation friendly.

Lifetime Technical Support.
LTL freight: Most traditional systems require a costly dedicated air-ride semi.
Flexibility: During production gaps in the weld shop, the cobot arm can be repurposed to other tasks.
Download videos, images and brochure here.

About Universal Robots
Universal Robots was founded in 2005 to make robot technology accessible to all by developing small, user-friendly, reasonably priced, flexible industrial robots that are safe to work with. Since the first collaborative robot (cobot) was launched in 2008, the company has experienced considerable growth with the user-friendly cobot now sold worldwide. The company, which is a part of Teradyne Inc., is headquartered in Odense, Denmark, and has subsidiaries and regional offices in the United States, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Russia, Turkey, China, India, Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Mexico. In 2018, Universal Robots had a revenue of USD 234 million. For more information, please visit www.universal-robots.com or read our blog at blog.universal-robots.com.

About Vectis Automation
Vectis Automation is a team of engineers in Fort Collins, CO with 60+ years of combined experience in the robotic welding industry. The company is a Universal Robots Certified Systems Integrator and provides a fully integrated and extremely easy-to-use cobot welding tool, along with welding application expertise to help evaluate end-user applications and consult on best practices for successful implementation. www.vectisautomation.com