Nowadays, laser manufacturing technique is increasingly being introduced into the production line of different industries with laser cutting, laser marking, laser engraving and laser welding being the major application. In addition, laser cleaning also has a few applications. For such a long time, laser welding had been considered to have great market potential. But limited to insufficient laser power and insufficient level of automation, laser welding market didn’t have good development in the past.
The laser welding machines in the past are often powered by traditional YAG laser and CO2 laser. These kinds of laser welding machines are low power and are mostly mold laser welding machine, advertising laser welding machine, jewelry laser welding machine, hardware laser welding machine and so on. They belong to low-end laser welding machines and their applications are only limited their own respective industry.
The development trend of laser weldingThe breakthrough of laser welding machine requires the breakthrough in laser technique and laser power. For YAG laser, its power is normally 200W, 500W or so. Its laser power is seldom more than 1000W. Therefore, the limitation of the laser power is quite obvious. For CO2 laser, although its power can reach more than 1000W, it’s hard to achieve precision welding, as its wavelength reaches 10.64μm with bigger laser spot. Besides, limited by the light transmission of the CO2 laser light, it is also hard to achieve 3D and flexible welding.
At this time, laser diode appears. It has two modes as direct output and optical fiber coupling output. Laser diode is ideally suited for plastic welding, metal welding and soldering and its power reached more than 6KW for a long time. It has a few applications in automobile and aerospace industries. However, since its price is relatively high, few people select it. Comparing with laser diode, fiber laser has relatively lower price and once fiber laser welding machine was promoted in the market, its power increase year by year and now the fiber laser welding machine reach 10KW+ and the technique has become quite mature. For the time being, fiber laser welding machine has wide applications in motor, battery, automobile, aerospace and many other high-end areas.
After solving the problems of laser and laser power, the automation is the next problem to deal with in order for big development of laser welding. For the past two years, handheld laser welding machines have got quite impressive shipment due to the dramatic price reduction. Because of high welding speed, delicate weld line and excellent welding performance, handheld laser welding machine has become the option for people who are in the hardware processing industry. However, handheld laser welding machine requires human labor after all, without any automation. Traditional laser welding machine is a stand-alone equipment and requires human to put the work pieces on the welding table and take them out after finishing welding. But this kind of practice is pretty inefficient. In the future, industries like battery, communication components, watches, consumer electronics, automobile and so on will require more automatic laser welding production line and that could be one of the development trends of laser welding machine in the future.
Power battery promotes the development of laser welding techniqueSince 2015, China has been promoting the development of new energy vehicles with electric vehicle as the major one. This move can not only reduce the air pollution but also encourage people to change for new car, which can stimulate the economy. As we know, the core technique in an electric vehicle is no doubt the power battery. And power battery has brought great demand for laser welding -- copper material, aluminum alloy, cell, sealing of the battery. These all require laser welding.
Laser welding machine needs to be equipped with stable recirculating laser chiller unitPower battery is only one of the wide applications of laser welding. It is believed that in the future there will be more industries using laser welding machine. Laser welding often requires the reliability and stability. And also temperature control - this refers to adding a recirculating laser chiller unit.
S&A Teyu has been dedicating to recirculating laser chiller units for 19 years. The air cooled laser water chillers are applicable for many different kinds of laser sources, such as YAG laser, CO2 laser, fiber laser, laser diode and so on. With laser welding having more and more applications, it will bring a great opportunity to S&A Teyu, as the cooling demand will also increase. Find out your suitable recirculating laser chiller unit at https://www.teyuchiller.com/fiber-laser-chillers_c2
