Laser processing has experienced a rapid development in the past 10 years in China and is gradually replacing traditional techniques. From screen printing to laser marking and engraving, from punch press to laser cutting, from chemical agent washing to laser cleaning, these are great changes in the processing techniques. These changes are more eco-friendly, more efficient and more productive. And that is the progress brought by the laser technique and a trend that is “meant to be”.
Handheld laser welding technique develops rapidly
In terms of welding, the technique also experiences changes. From the original normal electrical welding, arc welding to the present laser welding. The metal oriented laser welding has become the most important application for the time being. Laser welding has been developing in China for nearly 30 years. But in the past, people often used small power YAG laser welding machine to do the welding job, but small power YAG laser welding machine was in low level of automation and required manual loading and unloading. What’s more, its working format was pretty small, which made it hard to process big workpiece. Therefore, laser welding machine didn’t get wide application at the beginning. But later, in the past few years, laser welding machine has have big development, especially the advent of fiber laser welding and semiconductor laser welding. For the time being, laser welding technique has been widely used in automobile, aerospace and other high-end industries.
In the end of 2018, handheld laser welding machine began to gain its popularity. Thanks to the reduce cost of fiber laser and the established technique of fiber transmission and handheld welding head.
The reason why handheld laser welding machine gets popular so fast is that it is easy to use and flexible. Comparing with traditional laser welding machine which has high technical threshold, handheld laser welding machine doesn’t require fixture and motion control. It is more acceptable for most of the small-medium enterprises.
Take stainless steel welding for example. Stainless steel welding is quite normal in our daily life and most of them adopt normal TIG welding or spot welding. After many years of development, manual operation is still the major operation and there are quite a lot of these kinds of welders. You can see the trace of TIG welding in stainless steel objects in kitchenware, bathroom products, doors and windows, furniture, hotel decorations and many other industries. TIG welding is often used to weld thin stainless steel sheet or pipe. But now people just replace TIG welding by handheld laser welding and they are very similar in operation. For handheld laser welder, people will only need the training of less than a day, which shows great potential of handheld laser welding machine replacing TIG welding.
It is a trend that handheld laser welding machine replaces TIG welding machine
TIG welding often requires melted welding wire for connection, but that often lead to protruding on the weld part. However, handheld laser welding doesn’t require welding wire and has smoother weld part. TIG welding has been developing for many years and has the biggest user base while handheld laser welding is a kind of novel technique with fast development and only accounts for small use base. But it is a trend that handheld laser welding will replace TIG welding. For the time being, with the cost being considered, TIG welding is also very popular.
Nowadays, TIG welding machine only costs around 3000RMB. As for handheld laser welding machine, in 2019, it cost over 150000RMB. But later as the competition becomes more fierce, the number of handheld laser welding machine producers also increased, which lowers the price to a great extent. Nowadays, it only costs around 60000RMB.
TIG welding often realizes as spot welding at certain spots to reduce manual labor and materials. But for handheld laser welding, it performs welding all the way through a welding line. This makes handheld laser welding more stable than TIG welding. The common powers of handheld laser welding machine include 500W,1000W,1500W or even 2000W. These powers are sufficient for thin steel sheet welding. The current handheld laser welding machines have become more and more compact and many parts including
industrial process chiller can also be integrated into the whole machine with more flexibility and lower price.
S&A Teyu process cooling system contributes to the wide application of handheld laser welding
As handheld laser welding will replace TIG welding in the coming future, its components like fiber laser source, process cooling system and welding head will also have great demand.
S&A Teyu is an industrial refrigeration device supplier with 20 years of experience and is dedicated to providing high performance industrial process chillers ideally suited for different kinds of laser device. For handheld laser welding machines, S&A Teyu promoted the RMFL series laser water chillers. This series of process cooling system features rack mount design, space efficiency, ease of use and low maintenance, which makes it ideal for cooling handheld laser welding machine. Find out more information about this series of chiller at https://www.chillermanual.net/fiber-laser-chillers_c2
