Even with the advent of fi ber lasers, laser welding capital expense costs can be relatively high but are offset by many advantages. As Barry found out from an extensive review with existing customers, capital cost was not the most important buying factor. The factors that matter include good process control; high-quality welds; robust operation with high uptime; and ease of use by operators not expert in lasers.
“Fiber lasers when employed cor- rectly are easy to use and easy to teach people to use,” he said. “They provide a large window of acceptable param- eters.” Some customers prefer a lower average power with many pulses; others prefer high power with few pulses. Customers can obtain a variety of re- sults from the same basic system. “The simple processes actually mean we can do more interesting welding,” he added.
Laser Developments
Another key development Barry is seeing is a single laser system tasked to do multiple operations, such as cutting, drilling, and welding. He attributes this to the newer quasi-continuous wave (QCW) fi ber laser. “Before, manufactur- ers would cluster lasers in the same area, now they are distributing them into work cells because they can perform multiple operations and they do not need specialized operators who are experts with lasers,” he explained. The next big jump in development may very well be high-brightness direct diode lasers, according to Hansen. Attributes he likes include lower cost, higher electrical effi ciency and the small footprint or form factor. In fact, they are similar in size to current welding power. What are direct-diode lasers? Many solid-state lasers use diodes to excite a lasing material. Therefore, disk-lasers or fi ber-lasers use diode lasers as an inter-
mediate power source. The direct diode laser skips the interme- diate process. The trade-off is poorer beam quality but higher effi ciency. Laserline (Santa Clara, CA) is a supplier of high-power direct diodes used to create the laser beam used in welding, cut-
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