MAG Welding Defined

MAG weld­ing robots are the per­fect con­tender for weld­ing process­es where the qual­i­ty and speed of the repet­i­tive weld are cru­cial. It’s a great way to improve effi­cien­cy and con­sis­ten­cy while quick­ly receiv­ing a Return On Your Invest­ment.

Met­al Active Gas (MAG) auto­mat­ed Weld­ing is sim­i­lar to MIG weld­ing, yet dif­fers in the type of shield­ing gas used. They are both sub types of weld­ing method clas­si­fied as GMAS (gas met­al arc weld­ing). How­ev­er, MIG uses Met­al Inert Gas while MAG uses Met­al Active Gas. 

The heat for the weld­ing process is cre­at­ed by a DC elec­tric arc that helps to fuse the con­sum­able met­al elec­trode to the piece that is being worked on. This met­al elec­trode (a small diam­e­ter wire) is fed by pow­ered feed rolls (wire feed­er) and becomes part of the weld pool. Both the arc and the weld pool are shield­ed by a chem­i­cal­ly active gas. An active gas is in the pro­tec­tive gas cat­e­go­ry of M21, also known as mixed gas 18 or MIX 18. These gas­es meant to shield, also react dur­ing weld­ing and can affect the seam sur­face, met­al­lur­gy, pen­e­tra­tion, behav­ior, arc sta­bil­i­ty, and droplet tran­si­tion. This gas is dis­charged to help pre­vent the molten met­al beneath the arc from oxidizing.

If nec­es­sary, the com­po­si­tions of gas can be mixed up and changed for the weld­ing process to active­ly affect and adapt to the right mate­r­i­al. Typ­i­cal­ly, MAG is used for steel and MIG for non­fer­rous metals.

There are three met­al trans­fer modes that can be used, depend­ing on the oper­at­ing fea­tures nec­es­sary, for the process. Short-cir­cuit­ing and pulsed met­al trans­fer are per­fect for low cur­rent oper­a­tions. Short-cir­cuit­ing (“dip trans­fer”) has the molten met­al form on the tip of a wire and is trans­ferred by the wire dip­ping into the weld pool. Spray trans­fer is used dur­ing high weld­ing cur­rents. This tech­nique must use high­er volt­age to make sure the wire doesn’t make con­tact with the weld pool. The molten met­al on the tip of the wire trans­fers to the weld pool in the form of a spray of small droplets (small­er than the diam­e­ter of the wire). These droplets are then detached ran­dom­ly across the arc by apply­ing puls­es of cur­rents. The pulsed mode was devel­oped as a means of sta­bi­liz­ing the open arc below the thresh­old, to avoid spat­ter­ing and short-circuiting.

After bet­ter under­stand­ing the MAG process, it is easy to see the advan­tages to automat­ing this process step. A big advan­tage of MAG weld­ing is the abil­i­ty to eas­i­ly inte­grate recon­di­tioned refur­bished robots for this appli­ca­tion. These robots can save you up to 50% on cost, with­out sac­ri­fic­ing per­for­mance quality. 

Robots​.com has over 25+ years of inte­grat­ing weld­ing robots, espe­cial­ly MAG and MIG weld­ing robots. All of our pre-owned robots go through a rig­or­ous recon­di­tion­ing process which restores the refur­bished robot to like-new con­di­tions and extends its life com­pa­ra­ble to a new robot. 

Robot­ic weld­ing automa­tion includes faster, con­sis­tent cycle times, no break in pro­duc­tion, and over­all bet­ter weld qual­i­ty. Robot­ic weld cells are also avail­able and can enhance pro­duc­tion flow and increase work­er safety. 

Inter­est­ed in automat­ing a MAG oper­a­tion with an indus­tri­al robot? Con­tact us by fill­ing out this form, or call us at 877−762−6881 to start build­ing your MAG weld­ing robot solu­tion today.