4999results about "Resistance welding apparatus" patented technology

A system for managing consumption of power supplied by an electric utility to power consuming devices includes at least one client device and a server. Each client device operates at least partially responsive to control messages received from the server and controls operation of one or more controllable devices. Each controllable device selectively enables and disables a flow of power to one or more of the consuming devices. The server stores information, on a per client device basis, relating to power consumed by the consuming devices. When a power reduction is requested by the utility, the server selects, based on client device information stored in the database, at least one client device to which to issue a power reduction message that indicates at least one of an amount of power to be reduced and an identification of a controllable device to be instructed to disable a flow of power.

A system and method for facilitating welding system diagnostics is provided. The invention includes a welder, a local system, a remote system, and / or an alarm component. The invention further provides for receiving sensor input(s), performing test sequence(s) based, at least in part, upon the sensor input(s) and / or performing internal diagnostics. The invention further provides for determining a health status of the welder and communicating the health status of the welder to the local system, the remote system and / or the alarm component. The health status of the welder can include welder alarm(s) and / or fault(s). Information regarding the health status of the welder can be sent by telephone, voicemail, e-mail and / or beeper. The welder can communicate with the local system and / or remote system to schedule maintenance. The invention further provides for a expert component to facilitate welding diagnostics based, at least in part, upon the health status of the welder, welder data, an expert data store, a local service support data store, a remote expert data store and / or a remote service support data store. The expert component can employ various artificial intelligence technique(s) (e.g., Bayesian model, probability tree network, fuzzy logic and / or neural network) to facilitate welding diagnostics based, at least in part, upon the health status received from the welder. The expert component can adaptively modify its modeling technique(s) based upon historical success (e.g., learn from success of previous welding diagnostics). The invention further provides for the welder, local system and / or remote system to initiate corrective action, at least temporarily, based, at least in part, upon the health status of the welder.

A method and apparatus for detecting a joint between workpieces is provided. At least one light line is recorded by the light section method to detect the three-dimensional course of the joint and a grey-level image of the joint is also recorded. The grey-level image is evaluated to assess the quality of the joint.