I find this interesting to watch. I have laser welded for 24 years using CO2 lasers and recently fiber lasers. The company I work for mainly uses Laserdyne systems which use a beam director, X Y X axis’s and an indexing router table. My process is certified for depth of penetration and width at the interface. Feeds speeds and distances are critical and each weld operation is verified by submitting a pre and post sample. Every move is programmed using a CNC machine . We do not add filler wire to our processes so every weld joint must be perfect. I do not consider myself a manual welder but I am very aware of what a good vs bad weld looks like. One observation of the way you are welding this part is there are too many stops during the welding process. Use more tacks in you setup. May I suggest the next time you weld a ring to a cylinder that you do so with the part rotating 360 before you tail out. Put a low power stitch weld on the joint every 10 to 20 degrees before the final pass using a higher power to consume the stitch. This will help hold the material together as you are fighting heat expansion of the sheet metal. I’m not criticizing your technique, would love to get a chance to laser weld manually but our weld engineer doesn’t see the need for it but I think this would be a great tool to fix weld defects.
This was a one off weld to show what is possible in regards to hand held laser welding. For a production part additional tack welds - which is a IPG Preset and computer timed - this part would have the welding optimized.
The wire feeder sets the welding speed and wire touches the material and pushes the welders hand along. The aluminum wire speed ranges from 80 cm/min on .040 depth of penetration to 65 cm/min on .160 or .200 depth of penetration.
The wire feed is that system twin drive lower with top undriven plain rollers?. It seems manual laser welding the wire feed pushes the gun therefore it's just laying in wire to weld over and setting the travel speed ? You must have slip issues? Maybe why the manufacturer is only giving information to use 5356 1.2mm filler wire one setting and nothing for any other ALU series/filler on their settings sheet. Any feedback on this from your hands on time ? What diameters / filler have you ran through it, I'd imagine softer like 4043 one example and less than 1mm would be very problematic..
We have used 5356 and 4043 wire 1.2 and 1.5 mm thickness. Both have worked ok. We have not used thinner wire but generally you tend to use a thicker wire. Welding speed equals wire speed and amount of wire used equals width of the weld joint. The lead is limited to 10 ft. Speeds are 80 cm/min for .040, 75 cm/cm for .080, 70 cm/cm for .120, 65 cm/min for .160 and .200 depth of penetration. The set up is a double roller push arrangement. Wire touches the material and pushes - paces the welders hand along. Most common thickness is 1.2 mm.
@@Serra-LightBOT in a future video if you had time could you integrate some information about the wire feed unit itself, take rollers out ect, is the bottom 2 rollers driven only? I'm assuming you put in the 'u' grove top and bottom for the given wire diameter, unless this unit is using flat top rolls. Thanks for the response 👍
What i absolutely not like in this art of machines is the mode setting. Like A0. You as a customer has absolutely no idea what this settings will do exactly. Sou you can not adopt it to another machine and have to stay with this art of machines.
Fiber lasers are not all the same. What the IPG presets do is make it easy for someone who does not know anything about laser welding to be able to easily set it up with no prior laser welding experience. And fast. Adjustments can be made. Power adjustment alters the depth of penetration, adjustment of the wobble width spreads the energy over a wider area - adjusted by % of factory preset - and frequency % of factory preset. And the user can make his own user presets where he has control of all the parameters - in absolute terms and memorize these with a two digit recall. This section of LightWELD is accessed thru the IPG user interface. Each builder has a different set of parameters - beam quality and mode type affect the depth of penetration with a given power - focal length, fiber diameter, collimation all can change the weld parameters between one builder and another. IPG also considered the environment welding takes place in - so wanted a system where the set up consisted of adjusting knobs and simple input vs. trying to adjust many parameters with a welding glove on a membrane screen - which over a short time will show wear and be unreadable. Use the IPG Welding Mode chart to look up the material - type of weld - fusion - wire - spot/tack - and depth of penetration and a two digit alpha code sets the weld up. Simple but powerful. Make fine adjustments where needed - memorize the adjustments if desired - and weld. All IPG preset conditions have been tested and x ray analyzed - and work right out of the box.
@@Serra-LightBOT thanks for the complete explanation. But I think Fiber laser are all the same. Maybe different quality of the material and maybe not exactly the same power output ase described. I would prefer ipg only give the power settings and wooble seetings for different application. If you use this so you can laser welding with any machine world wide. Anyways, thank you for the explanation.
No problem. But in reality they are not all the same. Even IPG lasers are not all the same. The multi mode fiber lasers IPG uses on the 1500 and 1500 XC will penetrate .160 into the material. The 1500 XR - with the same power - will penetrate .250 into the material. The energy density is the key here as the XR has a smaller beam spot and has 6 X the energy in the same space - which is more efficient in coupling with the material. IPG lasers are known for their beam quality or brightness This has a beneficial effect especially on welding reflective materials such as aluminum and copper. Especially thin aluminum. With a multi mode laser it takes about 700 watts to weld aluminum or the beam just bounces off the aluminum. With the single mode laser you can start welding aluminum with 350 watts which makes welding thin aluminum much easier to do. In general a single mode laser uses about 30 % less power to get the same depth of penetration as the multi model. Which has the effect of minimizing heat input into the part. IPG makes alot of different fiber laser sources and has many years of welding experience - in batteries - automotive and other applications - and this experience was brought to the LightWELD product.
I find this interesting to watch. I have laser welded for 24 years using CO2 lasers and recently fiber lasers. The company I work for mainly uses Laserdyne systems which use a beam director, X Y X axis’s and an indexing router table. My process is certified for depth of penetration and width at the interface. Feeds speeds and distances are critical and each weld operation is verified by submitting a pre and post sample. Every move is programmed using a CNC machine . We do not add filler wire to our processes so every weld joint must be perfect. I do not consider myself a manual welder but I am very aware of what a good vs bad weld looks like. One observation of the way you are welding this part is there are too many stops during the welding process. Use more tacks in you setup. May I suggest the next time you weld a ring to a cylinder that you do so with the part rotating 360 before you tail out. Put a low power stitch weld on the joint every 10 to 20 degrees before the final pass using a higher power to consume the stitch. This will help hold the material together as you are fighting heat expansion of the sheet metal. I’m not criticizing your technique, would love to get a chance to laser weld manually but our weld engineer doesn’t see the need for it but I think this would be a great tool to fix weld defects.
This was a one off weld to show what is possible in regards to hand held laser welding. For a production part additional tack welds - which is a IPG Preset and computer timed - this part would have the welding optimized.
The wire feeder sets the welding speed and wire touches the material and pushes the welders hand along. The aluminum wire speed ranges from 80 cm/min on .040 depth of penetration to 65 cm/min on .160 or .200 depth of penetration.
The wire feed is that system twin drive lower with top undriven plain rollers?.
It seems manual laser welding the wire feed pushes the gun therefore it's just laying in wire to weld over and setting the travel speed ? You must have slip issues? Maybe why the manufacturer is only giving information to use 5356 1.2mm filler wire one setting and nothing for any other ALU series/filler on their settings sheet.
Any feedback on this from your hands on time ? What diameters / filler have you ran through it, I'd imagine softer like 4043 one example and less than 1mm would be very problematic..
We have used 5356 and 4043 wire 1.2 and 1.5 mm thickness. Both have worked ok. We have not used thinner wire but generally you tend to use a thicker wire. Welding speed equals wire speed and amount of wire used equals width of the weld joint. The lead is limited to 10 ft. Speeds are 80 cm/min for .040, 75 cm/cm for .080, 70 cm/cm for .120, 65 cm/min for .160 and .200 depth of penetration. The set up is a double roller push arrangement. Wire touches the material and pushes - paces the welders hand along. Most common thickness is 1.2 mm.
@@Serra-LightBOT in a future video if you had time could you integrate some information about the wire feed unit itself, take rollers out ect, is the bottom 2 rollers driven only? I'm assuming you put in the 'u' grove top and bottom for the given wire diameter, unless this unit is using flat top rolls. Thanks for the response 👍
What i absolutely not like in this art of machines is the mode setting. Like A0. You as a customer has absolutely no idea what this settings will do exactly. Sou you can not adopt it to another machine and have to stay with this art of machines.
Fiber lasers are not all the same. What the IPG presets do is make it easy for someone who does not know anything about laser welding to be able to easily set it up with no prior laser welding experience. And fast. Adjustments can be made. Power adjustment alters the depth of penetration, adjustment of the wobble width spreads the energy over a wider area - adjusted by % of factory preset - and frequency % of factory preset. And the user can make his own user presets where he has control of all the parameters - in absolute terms and memorize these with a two digit recall. This section of LightWELD is accessed thru the IPG user interface. Each builder has a different set of parameters - beam quality and mode type affect the depth of penetration with a given power - focal length, fiber diameter, collimation all can change the weld parameters between one builder and another. IPG also considered the environment welding takes place in - so wanted a system where the set up consisted of adjusting knobs and simple input vs. trying to adjust many parameters with a welding glove on a membrane screen - which over a short time will show wear and be unreadable. Use the IPG Welding Mode chart to look up the material - type of weld - fusion - wire - spot/tack - and depth of penetration and a two digit alpha code sets the weld up. Simple but powerful. Make fine adjustments where needed - memorize the adjustments if desired - and weld. All IPG preset conditions have been tested and x ray analyzed - and work right out of the box.
@@Serra-LightBOT thanks for the complete explanation.
But I think Fiber laser are all the same. Maybe different quality of the material and maybe not exactly the same power output ase described.
I would prefer ipg only give the power settings and wooble seetings for different application. If you use this so you can laser welding with any machine world wide.
Anyways, thank you for the explanation.
No problem. But in reality they are not all the same. Even IPG lasers are not all the same. The multi mode fiber lasers IPG uses on the 1500 and 1500 XC will penetrate .160 into the material. The 1500 XR - with the same power - will penetrate .250 into the material. The energy density is the key here as the XR has a smaller beam spot and has 6 X the energy in the same space - which is more efficient in coupling with the material. IPG lasers are known for their beam quality or brightness This has a beneficial effect especially on welding reflective materials such as aluminum and copper. Especially thin aluminum. With a multi mode laser it takes about 700 watts to weld aluminum or the beam just bounces off the aluminum. With the single mode laser you can start welding aluminum with 350 watts which makes welding thin aluminum much easier to do. In general a single mode laser uses about 30 % less power to get the same depth of penetration as the multi model. Which has the effect of minimizing heat input into the part. IPG makes alot of different fiber laser sources and has many years of welding experience - in batteries - automotive and other applications - and this experience was brought to the LightWELD product.
@@Serra-LightBOT Is an A1 setting equal to an E1 if both are manually changed to 1000 watts & 30 wobble frequency?
John- what model of LightWELD are you asking about ?