A prominent OEM requested Welded Coil support on a line they were building. Full support requires being able to switch coils while the line is running. Ideally scrap caused by not being able to produce good parts with a weld in them would be minimized.

We set about doing all of the work required for both goals. The specs from the OEM indicated that material between the Weld Station and the Shear was tightlined, which requires a stop to do the weld. It also allows us the processing time to optimize the scrap around the weld. We set about providing that solution. This Mode is called Synchronous Coil Welding.

Somewhere there was a miscommunication. There is an accumulator between the Weld Station and the Shear and they don't wish to stop to do the Scrap Optimization. This Mode is called Asynchronous Coil Welding. We didn't spend any time on this, We also didn't spend any time working out the operation with the coil inventory disabled, or making the Dump Table feature, they require, work.

The machine is built and waiting for software, so, we had to scramble.

This change implements the Asynchronous Coil Welding mode with the limitation that the Coil Inventory must be disabled. It also integrates with the Dump Table code by marking any part that contains a Weld in it, as Scrap. The Dump Table code requires that MODBUS be enabled with extended IO.