Noonan of Schmidt. “And fiber lasers have really pushed the price point down. It’s become more affordable for your smaller manufacturers to get in and enjoy the benefits of having that traceability. It makes these companies more competitive because now they can offer this capability the way their larger rivals can.”


Henry of Epilog believes that the lower price point is a contributing factor to the increased interest. “Prices are not terribly high these days, the ease of use is better, all of these things contribute to systems like ours becoming more desir- able,” he said. “Add to that the trace- ability expectations and I think more and more companies are moving toward laser marking because it has become inexpensive and fairly easy to do.” Just how low has the price gone? Boyle of Amada Miyachi America said that “now you can get an entry-level fiber-laser marker for $20, 25K, maybe $30K with an enclosure.”


“Laser marking itself is at this point a commodity,” Boyle said. “People know what it is, they know what it does—it’s just a matter of getting set up and going.” That said, there is still plenty of innovation that’s being introduced in this area.


The Dark Arts of Metal Marking Because medical products pose a danger of spreading contaminants, which can hide in even tiny indenta- tions in a device, they need to be marked in a way that retains the surface integrity of the metal. The pre- ferred method of marking metal in the medical industry—and what the fiber laser is well suited for—is often called “annealing.” Purists say that this term is a misnomer, however, as it implies— at least for them—softening of metal. Tony Hoult, applications manager for


June 2015 | AdvancedManufacturing.org 63


IPG Photonics Corp. (Santa Clara, CA) prefers the term “dark marking.” “With dark marking you are growing an oxide layer and making it thick enough that it appears dark to the eye—but


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