US 12,440,914 B2
Process wire feed diagnosis and recovery
John Forrest, Grosse Pointe Woods, MI (US); and Brian Dellamora, Sterling Heights, MI (US)
Assigned to GM GLOBAL TECHNOLOGY OPERATIONS LLC, Detroit, MI (US)
Filed by GM GLOBAL TECHNOLOGY OPERATIONS LLC, Detroit, MI (US)
Filed on Mar. 15, 2022, as Appl. No. 17/695,297.
Prior Publication US 2023/0294195 A1, Sep. 21, 2023
Int. Cl. B23K 9/133 (2006.01); B23K 9/095 (2006.01); B23K 9/12 (2006.01)
CPC B23K 9/1336 (2013.01) [B23K 9/0953 (2013.01); B23K 9/0956 (2013.01); B23K 9/125 (2013.01)] 20 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. An apparatus for wire feed diagnosis, comprising:
a welding setup including a material feed system for a consumable welding wire;
a speed sensor for measuring the speed of the wire through the material feed system, the speed sensor comprising a pair of opposing tachometer rollers positioned to define a gap through which the wire is fed; and
a control module comprising a memory, computer readable instructions, and one or more circuitry for executing the computer readable instructions, the computer readable instructions controlling the one or more circuitry to perform operations comprising:
controlling the material feed system to draw the wire into the material feed system at a constant speed value and to progress the wire to a working end of the welding setup;
sampling speed data from the speed sensor during a predetermined diagnostic duration; and
determining a wire slip fault from the speed data and a reference speed comprising prior sampled speed data from the speed sensor, wherein determining the wire slip fault comprises determining that a current value of wire speed has dropped below a predetermined threshold tolerance of a previous value of wire speed.