Inductive sensors offer highest levels of weld-spatter immunity

Whilst Contrinex is renowned for the performance and robustness of its weld-immune inductive sensors, it continues to expand its offering with the introduction of an ACTIVSTONE ceramic-coating to offer the highest level of weld-spatter resistance.

The high-performance ceramic material forms a durable, non-stick coating on all external surfaces of the sensor, including the fixing nuts. By preventing weld spatter accumulation, this coating makes weld-slag removal much easier and reduces maintenance costs and therefore the ACTIVSTONE coating is also available on mounting brackets, plus there are spatter-resistant shroudings to prevent cable damage.

All Contrinex weld-immune sensors combine optimum detection sensitivity with immunity to magnetic interference, in particular from medium-frequency weld fields (current up to 15kA). They are suited for use in the hostile working environments found in automotive factories and other industrial welding plants.

Inductive sensors from Contrinex’s robust 700 Series stainless-steel family are recommended for the most demanding welding environments. Their housing is machined from a single-piece of V2A/AISI 303 stainless-steel and provides excellent chemical and mechanical resistance to shocks, vibration and abrasion. They also provide sensing distances of up to 16 mm which eliminates the risk of collision damage – an especially common occurrence when operating in close to moving machine parts in welding assembly fixtures.

The 700 Series stainless-steel sensors are unaffected by weld spatter, metal dust or chips and offer the same long operating distances on both steel and aluminium – ‘Factor 1’.

These sensors also include the IO-Link communication protocol over which parameters can be retrieved or updated remotely, which also makes them ideal for Industrial IoT (IIoT) and Industry 4 implementations.