Lake Cable LLC (www.lakecable), a company that encapsulates cables in metal sheathing and extrudes overall jackets over its control, instrumentation, and power cable product line, recently selected Sonobond Ultrasonics’ (www.sonobond.com) SonoWeld 1600 Digital Metal Spot Welder technology to improve its results.
Chris McLaughlin, Lake Cable facility maintenance manager, says, “We had been using a 20-year-old Sonobond machine and were very pleased. We knew there were other assembly methods. But, unlike ultrasonics, these other methods were less efficient and used consumables. We didn’t want that.”
In ultrasonic welding, high frequency ultrasonic energy is directed via a welding tip to the surfaces for the metals to be welded. The energy disperses the oxides and surface films between the work pieces to create a true metallurgical bond without melting the materials. Ultrasonic welding is environmentally friendly, produces no waste, and is economical to use.
McLaughlin says that when the company contacted Sonobond to replace a lost manual, “they recognized that a newer, customized unit could help us improve our existing processes.”
 This specially-modified SonoWeld 1600 welds on an angle, spreading out the stress to make a stronger joint. |
Sonobond responded by providing free, sample welds and a recommendation that Lake Cable, LLC replace the current unit with a specially modified version of the 2500-watt SonoWeld 1600 Digital Metal Spot Welder. This new unit featured a custom anvil slide assembly, as well as a modified frame to accommodate material up to 4.5 inches in width. It also enabled the unit to weld on an angle so that the stress would be spread out to make a stronger joint.
Lake Cable found that the weld strengths of the new joint equaled 90% of parent material strength, and was also pleased to find that a ¾-inch weld took only a half-second. The welder’s power supply has a built-in microprocessor to permit storage and recall of more than 250 weld protocols. In addition, the unit features automatic frequency control, overload protection, and automatic quality monitoring.
SonoWeld 1600 has proprietary heat-treated, tool steel Taper Lock Tips that can perform up to 300,000 welds, and are designed for simplified removal and replacement. A digital display allows selection of welding modes by time, energy or final weld thickness.
The company’s patented Wedge-Reed coupling system is designed to assure precise, dependable welds, and can be mounted in a variety of orientations for specific applications.
McLaughlin concludes, “We’ve gotten outstanding results from our customized SonoWeld 1600. We were also very pleased with personalized service and fast turnaround. All of our questions were answered, the training was excellent, and the requested spare-parts quote was sent out immediately. It just doesn’t get much better than that.”
