This article seems circa 2019. Laser welding with flexible, lightweight heads and 1-3kW fiber lasers are poised to change methodology by removing parameters. Smaller, handheld units area easier than glue guns to handle.
Yes, they are easier than glue guns to handle.
But you know, a lot more dangerous.
Particularly since the lasers currently used are invisible and reflected light will still destroy your eyes (or someone elses) at 50+ft, easily. Not to mention the actual laser danger itself (you can easily get a 4th degree burn in an instant).
So despite being easier to get right/handle from a welding perspective, they require significantly more safety precautions. Almost all videos show how easily and quickly they weld or clean or cut. Which is true! It's really easy and fast to get right.
But they also often don't show that you need laser curtains, etc.
You also have to understand what kind of laser is being used to understand what safety equipment to get. It's not as easy as mig/tig where you just get a welding helmet and declare victory,
you have to understand the laser wavelength and required OD to protect yourself.
They are also still really expensive, but that will change.
But using laser welding on like a construction site or whatever the same way non-laser welding is would be quite dangerous.
All of this is why serious safety interlocks/etc are used on laser welding equipment, even handheld, by everyone not making some crazy youtube video.
Ease of getting a quality weld is probably the most important thing with these. I'm sure someone with more experience than me can jump in if they have another reasoning.
They are much easier to get good welds with - they are essentially computer controlled.
So you can just select the right profiles, and pretty much drag the head in the right place and get a good weld.
It will get better, as well. While it hasn't gotten to handhelds yet (AFAIK), you can actually measure pretty much all of the variables that matter live using the same optics.
So it can get realtime feedback - which means it can adapt, and also, measure the quality of the actual weld for you.
So it's not just the betterness of the welding technology, but what it enables.
In that sense, it's like what CNC did to production woodworking over time.
You can always make what a CNC does by hand, though it's sometimes annoying or slow.
So some looked at it as just a better wood cutting thingy, and were unimpressed or didn't want to have to learn.
But looking at it as a better cutter misses the point. It enabled automation and other things that simply did not (and arguably could not) exist without it.
You will find essentially no production woodworking that is not CNC based anymore, often with entire lines that go from "raw wood" to "finished product" without human intervention.
Those who looked at it as a better wood cutting thingy, or didn't want to learn, were all left behind.
(Note i carefully am talking about production woodworking)
Whether it's automation or other things, laser welding will do the same. It isn't just a better welder. Using lasers enables things that were really hard or complicated to do before.
Even Miller Electric (for those not in the know, they have a significant percent of the market share of MIG/TIG welders) realizes this, and 2 weeks ago announced a partnership with IPG to bring laser welding to the masses.
Given the price point of most handheld 2-3kw laser welders is still 20-30k, and miller's price point is <5k, this is a fairly forward looking thing on their part. They clearly don't hope to try to convince most welders to spend 20-30k.
They instead must think that laser welding is going to eat them somehow, and think they need to lead instead of try to catch up. Given what i've seen, i think they are right on the money there.
> They are much easier to get good welds with - they are essentially computer controlled.
this didn't seem compelling to me at first glance because its pretty easy to get reasonable welds in mild steel. But I checked out some videos and see people breezing through with stainless and aluminum and getting good results fast, much faster than tig welding. (and point and shoot welding stuff like thin aluminum that a non-expert would just blow apart with arc welding)... pretty interesting.
> because its pretty easy to get reasonable welds in mild steel
Getting good welds consistently is hard, even in mild steel. They may look good, but you only know for sure if you check them (destructively or non-destructively). I've seen some pretty hairy stuff that looked nice on the outside but wasn't all that good on close inspection.
With Aluminum it is actually harder to make a weld that looks good but actually isn't.
Amazing bit of kit that. One of my kids is a professional welder I'd hate to think what he would do to get his grubby little fingers on a machine like that.
Awesome, seriously. Be careful though! (I'm sure you are aware of the risks but it doesn't hurt to say it again...). What I love about laser welding is that you inject just enough heat into the workpiece to get this super nice consistency. First time I saw a laser weld I think was when I saw an open model of a stainless steel pacemaker and I wondered how the joint was welded so perfectly, it didn't look like here had been much in terms of cleaning up the joint.
I have a 35W optical power laser head here for a cutter and that is already super impressive, what you have there is the equivalent of magic to me.
