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Contrinex Expands Weld-Immune Sensor Portfolio
New form factors and system-level accessories are designed to prevent false triggering, reduce maintenance requirements, and eliminate unscheduled downtime.
www.us.contrinex.com
Industrial sensors in automated welding cells face harsh operating conditions, including hot weld spatter accumulation, strong electromagnetic interference, extreme temperatures, and mechanical collisions with moving tooling. Contrinex has updated its Weld-Immune product range with new form factors and system-level accessories designed to prevent false triggering, reduce maintenance requirements, and eliminate unscheduled downtime.
Comprehensive Weld-Immune Portfolio Additions
The portfolio expansion introduces several hardware form factors, connectivity options, and mounting accessories:
- Pigtail Series: Provides flexible integration for dynamic applications, featuring an integrated LED in the connector, IO-Link digital communication, ACTIVSTONE® anti-spatter coating, and optional PTFE protective tubing.
- Miniature Flat Pack: Compact, fully stainless-steel proximity sensor designed for tight mounting envelopes, offering a 2 mm operating sensing distance, IO-Link connectivity, and ACTIVSTONE® coating.
- 2-Wire Series: Expands 2-wire inductive architecture options with a ceramic sensing face, full stainless-steel construction, and ACTIVSTONE® coating.
- Harsh Environment Cables: High-durability connectivity with IP69K ingress protection, rated for temperatures up to 200°C (and up to 260°C when paired with protective tubing) in lengths from 0.6 m to 10 m.
- Pre-Slit Protective Tubes & Tools: Temperature-resistant up to 260°C with a pre-slit mechanical design that simplifies installation and retrofitting over vulnerable wiring.
- ACTIVSTONE® Mounting Brackets: Heavy-duty steel brackets coated with ACTIVSTONE® ceramic material, compatible with threaded sensor formats ranging from M8 to M30.
Weld-Field Immunity and Full Inox Durability
Contrinex Weld-Immune sensors prevent false triggering or locked-on sensor outputs in high-current welding environments. The inductive circuitry provides magnetic field immunity against medium-frequency (MF) weld fields with currents up to 15 kA and 50 Hz power-frequency weld fields with flux densities up to 40 mT.
To withstand mechanical shocks and collisions with workpieces, the sensors combine one-piece Full Inox stainless-steel housings with proprietary Condet® technology. The external surfaces and accessories are protected by the ACTIVSTONE® high-integrity ceramic coating, which prevents hot weld slag from adhering to sensor faces and mounting brackets.
Additional Context
This section details technical specifications not included in the original news release.
Standard inductive proximity sensors utilize high-permeability manganese-zinc (MnZn) or nickel-zinc (NiZn) ferrite cores wrapped in inductive coils. In the presence of strong external magnetic fields generated by resistance spot welders (often reaching hundreds of millitesla near transformer secondary conductors), the magnetic domains within standard ferrite cores saturate, collapsing coil inductance and triggering false target detection. Contrinex Weld-Immune devices utilize air-core or planar coil topologies paired with differential sensing circuits and dynamic digital filtering, isolating high-frequency target modulation from low-to-medium-frequency weld current interference without requiring bulky external mu-metal shielding.
Full Inox inductive housings utilize a single piece of machined AISI 303 or AISI 316L stainless steel that covers both the sensor barrel and the front face without mechanical joints or epoxy potting boundaries. To allow eddy current generation through a solid metallic front face, the internal electronics utilize low-frequency multi-frequency pulse evaluation rather than standard continuous LC oscillator resonance. The ACTIVSTONE® ceramic layer is deposited via high-temperature plasma spray processes, forming a non-porous ceramic barrier that resists abrasive wire brushing and thermal shock from molten aluminum and steel spatter at temperatures exceeding 900°C.
Edited by Romila DSilva, Induportals Editor, with AI assistance.
Contrinex Weld-Immune sensors prevent false triggering or locked-on sensor outputs in high-current welding environments. The inductive circuitry provides magnetic field immunity against medium-frequency (MF) weld fields with currents up to 15 kA and 50 Hz power-frequency weld fields with flux densities up to 40 mT.
To withstand mechanical shocks and collisions with workpieces, the sensors combine one-piece Full Inox stainless-steel housings with proprietary Condet® technology. The external surfaces and accessories are protected by the ACTIVSTONE® high-integrity ceramic coating, which prevents hot weld slag from adhering to sensor faces and mounting brackets.
Additional Context
This section details technical specifications not included in the original news release.
Standard inductive proximity sensors utilize high-permeability manganese-zinc (MnZn) or nickel-zinc (NiZn) ferrite cores wrapped in inductive coils. In the presence of strong external magnetic fields generated by resistance spot welders (often reaching hundreds of millitesla near transformer secondary conductors), the magnetic domains within standard ferrite cores saturate, collapsing coil inductance and triggering false target detection. Contrinex Weld-Immune devices utilize air-core or planar coil topologies paired with differential sensing circuits and dynamic digital filtering, isolating high-frequency target modulation from low-to-medium-frequency weld current interference without requiring bulky external mu-metal shielding.
Full Inox inductive housings utilize a single piece of machined AISI 303 or AISI 316L stainless steel that covers both the sensor barrel and the front face without mechanical joints or epoxy potting boundaries. To allow eddy current generation through a solid metallic front face, the internal electronics utilize low-frequency multi-frequency pulse evaluation rather than standard continuous LC oscillator resonance. The ACTIVSTONE® ceramic layer is deposited via high-temperature plasma spray processes, forming a non-porous ceramic barrier that resists abrasive wire brushing and thermal shock from molten aluminum and steel spatter at temperatures exceeding 900°C.
Edited by Romila DSilva, Induportals Editor, with AI assistance.
