General overhaul - a story of success

At the beginning of 2017 a customer came to us with a special task. It was about the conversion and general overhaul of a machine from the 80s of the last century for friction welding of structural steels.

The 30-year-old machine from Eastern European production did in no way comply with the current safety standards and technical requirements for a contemporary production.

Our challenge was to put a new technical innovation on the old chassis in order to bring a machine from the last century to the latest state of the art. It was particularly appealing to us that friction welding was not part of our technical repertoire.

Mechanically the machine was completely overhauled, including the replacement of bearings, shafts and hydraulics, a new brake as well as a new engine.

However, the adaptation to the current EU safety standards and the replacement of the complete control technology was much more difficult. It was necessary to program a modern control system and a full graphical control panel with display of the working steps. Also required: The storage of different programs for different material diameters and an automatic check on OK / not OK Parts.

After only 4 months the result: A completely renewed machine for the welding of structural steels. Technically on the current EU safety stand and equipped with a control, which leaves nothing to be desired. Formulations for different material thicknesses and the related parameter settings of the system can be called up at the push of a button. All work steps of the machine are displayed in real time as plain text on the display. An automatic parts inspection in the machine including optical confirmation of the finished part quality for the operator. In short: a machine that is ready for the next 30 years of hard industrial use. And a new technology in the portfolio of Schmale Maschinenbau GmbH.

On our youtube channel you can watch a video of the success story (voice over only in german)