PP 100.

Welding positioners are where KOVACO began in 1991, and the PP line has grown ever since. The PP 100 asked for a step change: a three-axis pantograph positioner rated at 10,000 kg — double the previous maximum of the range — to hold heavy weldments in the ideal position for welding and assembly. The catch: it had to be built almost entirely on KOVACO's own machines, which capped plate thickness at 25 mm. At that load, and those moments — 50,000 Nm of tilt, 20,000 Nm of rotation — the existing design simply could not be scaled up.

Instead of stretching the old geometry, KOVACO's engineers redesigned the base frame, arm and table frame from the ground up — keeping only the external design language of the PP line — to reach far higher stiffness within the 25 mm thickness limit. The pantograph positioner delivers three independent movements: arm lift, unlimited table rotation and table tilt, with lift and tilt driven hydraulically and rotation by a frequency-controlled electric motor. The biggest first for the whole PP line was the slewing bearing: the compact build ruled out the external-toothed bearing used until then, so the team designed and implemented an internal-toothed slewing bearing — and a new rotation drive to match it.

A compact 10,000 kg positioner — 50,000 Nm tilt moment, 20,000 Nm rotation, 105° tilt and 1,100 mm arm lift — in a footprint of roughly 1,500 × 3,000 × 1,200 mm and under 6,000 kg. The structural know-how — high-load welded structures at limited plate thickness, and the internal-toothed slewing bearing — carries straight over to future sizes in the range. Designed, engineered and built in-house at KOVACO.