Nowadays, laser manufacturing technology has rapidly entered production lines in various industries, with laser marking, carving, cutting, and welding as the main application processes. In addition, laser repair and cleaning have also been applied in a small number of specific scenarios. Laser welding has always been considered to have great market potential, but due to insufficient laser power, high research and development barriers for workpiece fixtures, and automation control, the market application has not been well developed.

In the past, traditional YAG lasers and CO2 lasers were mostly used for laser welding. The equipment mainly consisted of low-power laser mold welding machines, advertising welding machines, jewelry spot welding machines, welding machines, hardware welding machines, etc. This type of low-end traditional laser welding single machine equipment also had low technical barriers. This low-power welding machine can only be used for simple welding in specific industries such as molds, glasses, jewelry, and advertising letters, with a narrow application range.

Development direction of laser welding

To expand the application of laser welding, it is necessary to have breakthroughs in laser technology and power. YAG lasers are generally 200w or 500w, with very few exceeding kilowatts and significant power limitations. Although the power of CO2 laser can reach, its wavelength is 10.64 μ m. The large light spot makes it difficult to achieve precision welding, and the transmission limitation of CO2 beam makes it difficult to achieve three-dimensional and flexible welding, making motion control a major challenge.

At this point, a semiconductor laser appears, which has two modes: direct output and fiber coupled output. Semiconductor lasers can be well applied to tin welding, plastic welding, metal welding and other fields. The power has already reached above 6KW, and laser brazing is also applied in the automotive, aerospace fields. However, due to the consistently high price of semiconductor lasers, there are fewer people choosing them. Fiber laser has a relatively small spot, making it suitable for cutting, but not suitable for welding. People cleverly use optical control after the beam is output to make the fiber laser can also be used for welding, which is the method of wobbling the output head. With the mature use of fiber lasers, high market recognition, and complete industrial supporting facilities, fiber laser welding has quickly developed and achieved excellent precision welding results. Nowadays, the 10000 watt laser power level has matured, and high-power laser welding has broken through the limitations of traditional welding equipment. At present, it has been applied in high-end fields such as railway locomotives, motor motors, battery manufacturing, aircraft manufacturing, vehicle body manufacturing, aerospace components, etc.

After solving the problems of laser and power, in order to achieve significant development in laser welding, breakthroughs must be made in welding control systems. In the past two years, handheld laser welding has achieved great success. To achieve great development in laser welding, breakthroughs must be made in welding control systems. In the past two years, handheld laser welding has achieved a good shipment volume, as the price of a set of laser welding equipment has significantly decreased, only requiring 60000 to 70000 yuan. However, a traditional low-power argon arc welding equipment is cheap for 3000 to 5000 yuan, and expensive for tens of thousands of yuan. Moreover, laser welding has become a choice for many engaged in hardware processing due to its fast speed, good welding surface effect, and good sealing performance. But handheld laser welding ultimately relies on manual labor and does not have automation. In the past, traditional laser welding machines used to manually place workpieces and remove them after welding, resulting in very low efficiency. In the future, in addition to some extra large parts, structural parts with high added value need custom welding, such as rail locomotives and aerospace parts, most other mass production industries need automated laser welding production lines, such as batteries, communication devices, watches, consumer electronics components, etc. Laser welding is just one of the processing rooms, and in addition, it needs to be equipped with loading and unloading, conveying systems, and high-speed and high-precision welding control, which requires very high requirements for the design of workpiece fixtures. If a breakthrough can be made in this area, it will open up many application spaces for laser welding.

Power batteries promote the development of laser welding

Since 2015, the Chinese government has vigorously promoted the development of new energy vehicles, mainly electric vehicles. On the one hand, it can reduce the exhaust pollution caused by oil use, and at the same time, it can promote the upgrading of vehicles and promote the consumer economy. The sales of new energy vehicles have grown significantly in the past five to six years, and many car manufacturers have also joined the ranks to launch electric vehicles. The long-term goal of the country is to make new energy vehicles account for nearly one-third of annual sales. So the core technology of electric vehicles is certainly batteries, and the large demand for power batteries has driven the rise of companies such as BYD, Ningde Times, Guoxuan, Ganfeng Lithium, and Yiwei Lithium Energy.

Power batteries bring a lot of demand for laser processing, and their manufacturing process requires the use of materials such as electrode laser cutting, laser welding, connecting pieces, battery cells, copper materials, as well as aluminum alloys, battery packaging, etc., all of which are laser welding.
 

About HGTECH

HGTECH is the pioneer and leader of laser industrial application in China, and the authoritative provider of global laser processing solutions. We comprehensively layout the construction of laser intelligent equipment, measurement and automation production lines, and smart factories to provide an overall solution for intelligent manufacturing.

We deeply grasp the development trend of manufacturing industry, constantly enrich products and solutions, adhere to exploring the integration of automation, informatization, intelligence and manufacturing industry, and provide various industries with laser cutting systems, laser welding systems, laser marking series, laser texturing complete equipment, laser heat treatment systems, laser drilling machines, lasers and various supporting devices The overall plan for the construction of special laser processing equipment and plasma cutting equipment, as well as automatic production lines and smart factories.