MCL Fabrication offers light and medium metal fabrication, including assembly
– but the shop isn’t afraid of the heavy-duty projects. It’s actually one of the reasons the team there was asked to test new welding equipment for Miller Electric.
MCL Fabrication, a division of MCL Industries, has an experienced metal fabrication team that includes welders, CNC machining specialists, laser operators, press brake operators and engineers. MCL Industries is a full-service contract manufacturing partner to customers across the United States, serving industries such as construction, defense, municipal, electronic, entertainment and others – producing everything from a single component to the complete product. MCL Industries, which has 175 employees, is part of The Village Companies, a group of companies that support each other in three lines of business: amusement, consumer products and contract manufacturing.
“About 20 percent of the work MCL Fabrication performs is for MCL Industries’ three business units,” says Adam Ambrosius, operations manager. “The other 80 percent of our business is through direct customers that we serve, such as OEMs and power-gen customers.”
The shop occupies about 83,000 sq. ft. of space where laser cutting, bending, welding and assembly are all performed by 34 direct production team members out of 46 team members in total. Typical materials the shop works with are mild steel, stainless steel and aluminum, from 26 gauge all the way up to “north of 1 in. plus, if needed.” Products range from small parts that fit in a human hand all the way up to 50-ft.-long pieces that weigh 22,000 lbs.
“Customers include the agricultural industry where we work on farm equipment implements,” Ambrosius says. “The power-gen industry has started to come into our facility where we provide large skid builds that support power units or big generator houses. We also provide a lot of airport traffic support for equipment that cleans airport runways. And we do a lot of OEM work for a good customer of ours in Milwaukee that builds municipality trucks.”
Time for testing
Welding is a large part of MCL Fabrication operations where around 75 to 80 percent of products are welded. The shop has more than 40 welding machines that are used across two shifts. The majority of those are manual welders from Miller – from Miller 250s and Millermatic 211s all the way to 350 Continuums and 450 Deltawelds. There is some robotic welding performed, but 90 percent is manual welding.
The wide range of on-the-job experience makes MCL Fabrication a good customer to test new products, which is why Miller asked the team there to test its XMT 400 multi-process power source. Cody Backhaus, a lead welder at the shop, was asked to lead the testing. He has been with the company for eight years and welding for 15 years.
“Cody had the privilege to use the prototype machine for more than a year,” Ambrosius says. “He’s well-rounded in the capabilities of it and just extremely knowledgeable about our industry and what he does from a fabrication standpoint.”
To test its full protentional, the XMT 400 was used in the shop’s high-productive workcenters that weld thicker materials. It was also used for some TIG welding and on some thinner gauge material.
“It’s been used for a wide range of parts,” Backhaus says. “Anything from 26 gauge for arcade games all the way up to the 1-in. material for components that we build for vacuum trucks. It was good to use it on a wide range of thicknesses to see its weld capability; it’s a powerhouse for anything you want to throw at it. I work 12-hour shifts, running it for 11 hours pretty consistently, and it has errored aired out or had any downtime issues. The welds don’t change. It’s an outstanding machine.”
Standout features
With all that high praise, there is still a laundry list of benefits that make the XMT 400 a standout machine.
EZ-Set simplifies parameter setup based on material thickness. “The easy setup allows a newer welder to establish parameters for effective welds, while also providing the precision necessary to fine-tune settings for high-quality results that are consistent,” Backhaus notes.
Next is mobility. “When we need to move the machine to weld a bigger component, it’s very easy to maneuver with the cart that carries it,” Backhaus says. “It’s around 75 lbs. so it’s a lot lighter than some of the other machines we have, especially the Continuums, which were the high-power machines that I was running before the XMT 400. The XMT has a smaller footprint, too.”
Furthermore, a Fan-On-Demand cooling system operates only when needed, reducing noise, energy use and the amount of contaminants pulled through machine. With Wind Tunnel Technology, air flow within the system protects internal components from dirt, dust and debris, which greatly improves reliability.
Backhaus notes that the fan and wind tunnel technologies really help with running 400 amps at 60 percent duty cycle on the XMT, which is “outstanding,” as he puts it.
“You can run heavy, thick material consistently all day and not have it overheat or have to slow down,” he says. “The efficiency is great and production stays high. With some welders, if your doing heavy, long welds, they can only handle so much. They start to overheat and then either your welds start to suffer or you have to let the welder cool down. But that isn’t the case with this machine at all.”
Finally, with the Intellx Elite wire feeder, welders can produce better welds with minimal parameter adjustments. For further ease use, ArcConnect communication allows point-of-use controls to be located at the feeder.
“The wire feeder is great, too, because you have eight programs you can run,” Backhaus says. “You can set up different programs for different size materials. And you can trigger-switch it so you don’t have to go to the machine and change the program, which obviously keeps production and efficiency higher, as well.”
Future plans
Built on the solid foundation of the XMT 350, the XMT 400 continues that legacy of providing a new level of consistent performance job after job. MCL Fabrication intends to keep using the system as the testing inspired the shop to add the XMT 400 to its fleet of welders and to consider adding two more units down the road.
“The combination of the XMT 400 and the Intellx Elite is definitely going to be in the forefront as we continue to expand our shop and add equipment,” Ambrosius says. “We have a 160,000-sq.-ft. building that we moved into three years ago, and we’ll continue to integrate and evolve welding areas. We’ve purchased probably more than 12 Continuum welders over the last two years. But as we continue to grow and we ‘bolt on’ those welding areas, the XMT 400 will definitely be in our minds.”
He adds that some team members that work on a lot of white metals have multiple machines in their booths, which takes up a lot of square footage.
“Having more than one machine takes up real estate and also affects the cleanliness and safety within those booths,” he says. “Obviously, it’s an advantage to have just the one XMT machine.
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