xiris using a weld camera to teach welding students apr … · being able to see what’s really...

Using a Weld Camera to Teach Welding Students

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8 Eight ways to improve welding productivity using a view camera

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> USING A WELD CAMERA TO TEACH WELDING STUDENTS

The Welding Instructors’ Dilemma:Training a new class of welding students can be a challenge for even the best instructors. They must come up with suitable answers to tough questions:

• How to enable all students to get close enough to the weld head to see what’s going on?

• How to set up the welding process so that students can see all the features of the welding process without the instructor or other students obstructing the view?

• How to review a presentation if a student missed it or didn’t understand something about the process?

• How to perform all the required welding demonstrations within budget and the limited number of hours available?

Imagine that you have a brand-new facility for teaching welding. It includes a variety of new equipment, a top-notch curriculum perfected over many years of experience, well-trained instructors and support faculty, and a full roster of new students for the next term.

It would seem that you’re all set to provide the best-possible welding instruction. But just as classes are about to start, you realize that you have some signifi cant problems.

That scenario is a reality for many welding instructors. Once they get into their classrooms, they discover teaching issues such as:

• The booths to demonstrate and instruct welding are too small for more than just a few students at a time.

• The instruction area has inadequate space for the number of students registered.

• The welding consumables budget isn’t suffi cient.


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Student visibility is an age-old problem in teaching welding. Instructors have long been trying to fi gure out how to best provide their students with a clear view of the weld process.

Being able to see what’s really happening with the weld tip and arc, as well as its immediate environment (e.g., weld seam, weld pool, shielding gas, wire feed), is essential in providing students a foundational understanding of the welding process. They need good visibility to satisfactorily learn about the condition and position of the weld tip and arc, as well as how to determine if all welding inputs (e.g. welding wire, shielding gas) are being properly fed.

They Can’t All See Everything! (courtesy of Casper College)

The capability to record lessons so students can learn outside of the classroom is also important, giving the students full opportunity to thoroughly digest what’s been taught.

Weld cameras are an obvious solution—allowing students to watch the lessons on screen during class to ensure adequate visibility, as well as to watch the recorded video of the lesson on their own time.

The problem with this solution has been the inability of traditional Weld Cameras to capture all the details of the welding process in one image.


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The Solution: the Xiris XVC-O Weld CameraA formidable task with imaging weld environments is the huge range of brightness that exists in a welding process—from the extremely bright light source (the weld arc) to the dark areas in the background around the weld tip. Reliable visualization is necessary for students to understand, control, and adjust the welding process, but because Weld Cameras historically haven’t been able to show suffi cient detail of both the super-bright regions of the image and its dark areas, students could only see part of what was going on.

Fortunately for instructors, students, welding program coordinators, and welding schools, new developments in electronics have led to the creation of cameras with High Dynamic Range imaging, such as the Xiris XVC-O. Weld Cameras with High Dynamic Range capability can accommodate the full range of light present at a weld head during welding—allowing welding to be taught in a way it has never been taught before!

The Solution: A Weld Camera for Teaching


> IMPROVING PRODUCTIVITY WITH A WELD CAMERA www.xiris.com

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By providing high-quality images, with suffi cient clarity of the weld tip and background, these Weld Cameras enable welding instructors and their students to remotely monitor a weld demonstration and record the results. The XVC-O can generate video images that can be viewed up to 40 m away, giving students a clear view of the process regardless of their proximity to the weld head. This remote monitoring avoids the typical congestion around a welding instructor during a traditional demonstration, and frees instructors from worrying about the logistics of ensuring all students can see the presentation in the immediate area of the weld process.

Instructors also benefi t by having their lessons recorded for off-line playback in the classroom, allowing them to be used for instruction, grading, or review purposes.

The type of welding process being taught matters little. The XVC-O Weld Camera system has been tested for use on a variety of welding processes including GMAW (MIG/MAG) short-circuit and spray, GTAW (TIG), Plasma, Fiber Laser, CO2 Laser, Hybrid MIG/Laser, Tandem TIG, and Stick. In addition, the system has been tested on pulsed welding processes across a frequency range of 0-2000 Hz.

Overcoming the Challenge of Weld Imaging

For a camera to see, in one image, clear detail of the very bright light generated by a weld arc and its darker surrounding background, a huge dynamic range of imaging is required.

The typical camera provides a dynamic range of imaging of 50-60 dB, which is a signal-to-noise ratio of about 1,000:1 between the brightest and darkest pixel in the image. However, in a welding process, the welding arc could be more than 10,000,000 times brighter than the darkest pixels in the background around it. This translates to a dynamic range of imaging of more than 120 dB.

To achieve this High Dynamic Range, Xiris developed the XVC-O, which has a dynamic range in excess of 120 dB, allowing most welding processes to be imaged with a clarity never seen before.


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High Speed TIG Welding on Copper – Front View

High Speed TIG Welding on Copper – Back View

Typical Welding Features that can be demonstrated using the Xiris XVC-O Weld Camera:

• Seam Alignment

• Mismatch

• Shielding Gas

• Condition of Wire Feed

• Wire Penetration

• Weld Porosity / Dross / Bubbles

• Keyhole Formation

• Weld Tip Condition

• Weld Pool Formation

• Weld Cracking

• Material Flow around Keyhole

• Weld Undercut

• Monitor Weld Spatter

• Weld Toe “Wetting”

• Weld Weave Stroke, Coverage

Following are example screen shots of weld features imaged with the XVC-O:


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Plasma Welding on Stainless Steel

5 Reasons Why a Weld Camera should be Used for Teaching:

1. Instructors can more effectively demonstrate skills and applications. By using a Weld Camera, instructors can demonstrate proper welding techniques to a large number of students—without having to be concerned about whether the students can fi t in around a crowded welding booth or if their visibility is blocked.

2. Space restrictions are eliminated during weld demonstrations. Monitors can be set up remotely so that the welding demonstration can be viewed up to 40 m away by students. In addition, multiple monitors can be chained together so that space is no longer an issue for large classes.

3. Good welds can be recorded as examples to follow. If an instructor performs a particularly good weld, the process can be recorded and played back off-line for additional process instruction and review. Instructors can generate a library of good welding processes for students to review on their own time or for future curriculum content.

4. Bad welds can be recorded as examples for correction. When instructors create bad welds for instruction purposes, demonstrating techniques that should not be followed, video of that weld can be provided as an off-line instructional tool.

5. Weld videos can be used for multiple purposes. Instructors can use videos of their demonstrations for:

• Repetitive training.• Additional review of the lesson.• Class discussion. • Review of individual students’ welding by the class and for instruction.• Grading of individual students’ progress.


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Benefi ts of Using a Weld Camera in the ClassroomHigh Dynamic Range imaging is a welcome development for welding instruction. The problem has always been technological restrictions of Weld Cameras, not the idea of using them to teach welding.

Many clear benefi ts fl ow from using Weld Cameras in classrooms:

For students

> A more-enjoyable learning experience.

> A clear view of the welding instruction.

> No stress about missing key points in a single, live demonstration.

> The ability to repeatedly view and learn from recorded demonstrations.

> Use of weld video for class projects.

For instructors

> No more worry about classroom space and students’ proximity to weld demonstrations.

> Better capability to demonstrate new or subtle techniques.

> An ongoing source of material to avoid constantly recreating lessons.

> Use of weld video in student review and evaluation.

> Use of recorded demonstrations for classroom discussion.


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Conclusion:Using a Weld Camera in the welding classroom is an important productivity tool that improves the quality of the teaching process, makes the learning experience more rewarding for the students, and bolsters the reputation and prestige of the welding program. The Xiris XVC-O Weld Camera uses High Dynamic Range imaging technology to overcome the technical limitations that have previously prevented these benefi ts from being realized.

For program coordinators and schools

> Reduced material consumption due to less repetition of the same welding process.

> Better curriculum development.

> Enhanced prestige for the welding school.

> Differentiation from schools without Weld Cameras in classrooms.

> More students moving through existing facilities, faster.

> Use of the weld camera system for testing and verifying of new processes and techniques.

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Would you like more information?sales @ xiris.com+1 866 GO XIRIS+1 905 331 6660

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xiris using a weld camera to teach welding students apr … · being able to see what’s really...

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