Laser welding when it needs to be fast, precise and economically efficient

High numbers, quickly produced welds and the highest quality requirements: welcome to laser welding and laser brazing. Especially in the automotive industry, lasers have become indispensable. From doors and roofs in body construction to car seats, battery cells, battery modules and stator hairpins of electric motors: in every field, laser joining processes convince with the highest precision, speed and economic efficiency. Together with strong technology partners, ABICOR BINZEL offers optimally matched, holistic system solutions. From the perfect weld to process monitoring and quality assurance.

Wherever the high power density of the laser must be converted into speed to fill gaps reliably and economically, laser brazing and laser welding with filler wire are required. Laser optics with tactile seam tracking are commonly used for such joining processes. These use the wire tip as a tactile sensor to maintain the position of the laser beam on the seam edge. Through lateral and axial adjustment, the position and size of the laser spot are always constantly aligned with the wire tip, and high quality welding or brazing at high joining speeds is made possible. At the same time, the process is only slightly sensitive to tolerances with changing component lengths. 

More and more manufacturers are using the technology of tactile laser connections and rely on ABICOR BINZEL as a system supplier, service partner and knowledge provider for wire feeders and associated systems. Moreover, this offering is constantly being expanded. The next generation of tactile laser optics was developed in close cooperation with the partner PT Photonic Tools GmbH, and will soon be available.

Remote laser scanner

You do not want to take any risks when welding automotive parts such as car doors, seats and battery batteries, or you want to guarantee inexpensive laser-welded joints with high strength and reliable power transfer in the production of batteries and electric motors? In remote laser welding, two or three sheets are joined together and without touching the workpiece itself (remote = remote). The laser beam is absorbed by the material and converted into thermal energy. After solidification of the weld pool, a final weld is created.

The distance between the laser and the workpiece is usually at least 300 mm to 1,000 mm and more. The advantage of remote laser welding is that, with each additional mm of distance between the remote laser scanner and the workpiece, the components are less subject to wear. 

It also provides better access to the workpiece and reduces the risk of collisions between the scanner's optics, the workpiece and the laser welding system. The highly dynamic scanning systems and innovative control concepts of partner Blackbird Robotersysteme GmbH, combined with the ABICOR BINZEL sales and service network, offers customers in the automotive industry optimal solutions and global support. 

Reliable process monitoring and quality assurance

Holistic solution approaches are required to continuously optimize product quality and production processes, reduce costs and meet safety requirements. In addition, ABICOR BINZEL also offers a selection of globally proven technology packages for process monitoring and quality assurance to meet the high quality requirements in production environments and to further optimize the economic efficiency of laser welding and brazing. Whether for process visualization, laser process monitoring or weld seam inspection, with the products from partners Lessmüller Lasertechnik, 4D Photonics and SmartRay you are playing it safe. 

Thus the WELDEYE high-speed camera system from Lessmüller visualizes and monitors the welding or soldering process and supports quality assurance thanks to proven algorithms. Not a single defect in the weld seam is missed by this "eye. In turn, with WeldWatcher® from 4D Photonics, defects in the weld seam can already be detected during welding, significantly reducing time-consuming and costly inspections. Finally, with SmartRay's JOSY non-contact 3D optical inspection, a fast all-in-one system, expensive quality incidents can be avoided and rework costs significantly reduced. ■