Straight answers

Three turnkey cobot systems: the Cobot Welder (MIG welding with a Universal Robots UR8 Long and your choice of Miller, ESAB, or OTC power source), the Cobot Cutter (plasma cutting with Hypertherm Powermax SYNC series cutters), and the Cobot Painter (powder coat and liquid coatings with a FANUC CRX-10iA/L Paint, the world's only explosion-proof collaborative robot). All three are controlled through the Beacon platform from any smartphone, tablet, or browser, and ship ready-to-run.

Systems ship pre-mounted, pre-wired, and ready to run. Most shops go from delivery to first production in hours, not weeks or months. Beacon guides your team through the entire setup, and no integrator, engineering team, or facility modifications are required.

The Cobot Welder starts at $105,000, the Cobot Cutter at $100,000, and the Cobot Painter at $140,000. Each is a complete, ready-to-run system including the robot, application equipment, hand-teaching tool, and Beacon software. Financing options are available, and most systems pay for themselves within 18 months.

No. Beacon speaks the shop's language: wire feed speed and travel speed, not lines of code. Your team teaches parts by hand-guiding the arm and tapping to save points, and no robotics engineers or specialized programmers are needed to run or scale the system.

Every cobot includes free 24/7 in-app support, with most tickets answered in 2 minutes or less. It also includes an ironclad warranty (15 months on the UR arm, 6 years on the Hypertherm plasma power supply, 3 years on the welder). Beacon Care adds priority support, loaner equipment, discounted parts and repairs, and optional on-site training.

Fabrication shops, contract manufacturers, and OEMs that need reliable welding output without the cost and complexity of traditional robotic cells. If you're short on skilled welders, fighting inconsistent quality, or turning down work, cobot welding fills the gap. It's especially effective for shops mixing short-run and repeat jobs, since you reprogram in minutes, not days.

Depending on your production factors, cobots can 2–10× your fabrication productivity. Most shops see 2–4× the output, saving significant labor hours and freeing your team for the work that matters most.

Yes. Just like MIG welding aluminum manually, a few settings and accessory adjustments let you produce high-quality aluminum welds with the Cobot Welder.

The Cobot Welder handles most repetitive welding work, but part suitability depends on size, material, and joint access. Start with the parts gallery of brackets, exhaust, sheet metal, and weldments other shops already run. Then bring your parts to a demo and we'll assess your application directly.

The cobot moves at up to 39 inches per second, and welds at up to 90 inches per minute. That's far faster than a human can weld, with extremely low heat input and maximum productivity.

Yes. Customers have achieved TIG-quality welds using MIG processes. One shop went from 2–5 inches per minute hand-TIG to 20 inches per minute, clearing their backlog in a few weeks.

No. After a demonstration you can enter the rent-to-own program and fully commit once you're ready, validating the cobot's performance on your own floor first. Typical lead time is about two weeks from purchase order.

Absolutely. Welding automation used to require six-figure custom integrations that only made sense for high-volume production. Cobot welders changed that equation. Shops running as few as 2–3 welders see meaningful ROI through increased throughput and reduced labor dependency. The system is specifically designed for high-mix, low-volume work, the kind most small and mid-sized fabricators handle every day.

Traditional robotic welding cells are large, expensive, and require dedicated programming expertise. They're optimized for running thousands of identical parts. A cobot welder is collaborative: it works alongside your team, requires no safety caging in many applications, and is programmed through an app instead of a teach pendant or offline software. That makes it ideal for shops that switch between parts frequently.

Cobot Welder packages start at $105,000, which includes the collaborative robot, welding power source, torch, table, and Beacon software. Custom-integrated robotic welding cells typically start at $150,000–$250,000+ before programming and installation costs, so the total cost of ownership is significantly lower.

No. The Beacon app is designed so that anyone who can use a smartphone can program and operate the cobot welder. Your experienced welders bring the welding knowledge (travel speed, wire feed, gas flow) and the app handles the robotics. Most teams are comfortable running production within their first day.

MIG welding (GMAW) out of the box, with TIG-quality results available through advanced MIG processes. The system handles carbon steel, stainless steel, and aluminum across a range of thicknesses. Fillet welds, butt joints, and complex multi-pass welds are all included.

Most new parts can be programmed and running in under 30 minutes using the Beacon app's tap-to-teach interface. Repeat parts load from a saved program and are ready to weld in seconds. That fast changeover is what makes cobot welding practical for shops with high part variety.

Depending on your workflow, the Cobot Cutter can boost fabrication productivity 2–10×. Most shops see 2–4× more cutting output and full payback in 18 months or less, with financing and rent-to-own options to reduce upfront risk.

Yes. The Cobot Cutter maintains perfect standoff distance, torch angle, and travel speed on every cut, eliminating the variability of manual plasma cutting. Tank Technology reported rework dropping from almost 25% to almost 0%, with weld-ready edges and minimal post-cut cleanup.

Any electrically conductive metal, including mild steel, stainless, aluminum, copper, brass, and more. The standard Powermax85 SYNC handles up to 1" mild steel; optional Powermax105 SYNC or Powermax125 upgrades extend the range for structural and heavy plate work.

For flat sheet with CAD files ready, CNC tables excel. The Cobot Cutter wins where they can't. It runs with no CAD/CAM or G-code (parts taught in minutes with the Smart Puck), on 3D surfaces and complex geometries like tank heads and pipes, from a mobile-cart footprint, and on high-mix low-volume batches where CNC programming overhead doesn't make sense.

This is where it excels. Teach new cut paths in minutes, save parts in Beacon, and recall them instantly for repeat orders. With Beacon Pro, Enhanced Playlists sequence multiple parts with autoplay. The sweet spot is batches of 10–500 parts, but it handles larger runs equally well.

Yes. Curved surfaces like tank heads, pipes, and formed parts are exactly what CNC plasma tables physically can't cut. Guide the torch along the actual part surface and the cobot records the full path, curves and contours included, with a 68.9" reach and 360° joint rotation.

Powder, liquid, and specialty coatings, including primers and top coats. Coverage stays consistent, with minimal overspray and less waste. Versatile for high-mix, low-volume finishing work.

No. Your team teaches spray paths by hand-guiding the teaching handle at the end of the arm, shaped like a spray gun, then adjusts spray speed, pattern, and coverage directly in the Beacon app. No coding or robotics experience required.

Yes. The FANUC CRX-10iA/L Paint is the world's first explosion-proof collaborative paint cobot. It's certified IECEx and ATEX with approvals for the U.S., Canada, Japan, Korea, China, Taiwan, and Brazil. Built-in force sensing lets it work safely alongside your team in spray environments.

Traditional paint robots need specialists, complex programming, dedicated paint cells, and large footprints. The Cobot Painter is lightweight, portable, and taught through the Beacon app. Roll it into an existing manual booth or onto a line, with no new construction or infrastructure.

Most shops are painting the same day. Set spray paths quickly, adjust coverage and patterns on the fly, and reposition the portable stand wherever it's needed.

Yes. With a 55.8" (1,418 mm) reach and a unique underflip motion, it accesses large workpieces and difficult spray angles that pose ergonomic challenges for human operators.

Beacon is our cloud-based automation platform that controls the Cobot Welder, Cutter, and Painter from any smartphone, tablet, or browser. Teach paths by hand-guiding the arm, set parameters in shop-floor language, save parts for repeat production, monitor real-time data, and get 24/7 in-app support, with most tickets answered in 2 minutes or less. Beacon is included free with every cobot.

Yes. Beacon is the unified control platform for all three systems. The interface adapts to each process with relevant parameters, but your team learns one platform for your entire fleet.

No. There's no G-code, no CAD/CAM, no teach-pendant code. Guide the arm by hand with the Smart Puck for welding and cutting, or the spray-gun handle for painting, tap to save points, and set parameters in shop-floor terms. As one customer put it, if you can scroll through Instagram, you can program with Beacon.

10× faster than traditional automation. Systems arrive pre-mounted, pre-wired, and ready to run. Most shops go from delivery to first production in hours. Beacon guides your team through the entire setup; no integrator, no engineering team, no facility modifications.

iOS, Android, web browsers, and the PSX teach pendant for offline environments (useful for defense and restricted networks). All programs, data, and settings sync instantly across devices. Everything is encrypted, with role-based access and automatic backup.

Beacon covers the essentials free, including real-time monitoring, file backup, and unlimited users. Beacon Pro adds 30-day history, Fine Tune Points, Enhanced Stitch, custom operator roles, part attachments, playlists with autoplay, chart exports, Slack alerts, and AI suggestions.