A few days ago, GW Laser accompanied the partners to the terminal customer in Wuzhong District of Suzhou – Fanfeng Electromechanical Co., Ltd., to visit the practical application of air-cooled laser handheld welding machine in sheet metal factory. The company covers an area of 20,000 square meters, has a factory building of 12,000 square meters, and has more than 160 fixed employees. Mainly for cold chain equipment, new energy, communication equipment, rail transit, precision machine tools and other industries to provide customers including precision sheet metal parts, precision stamping parts and assembly products and technical services, supporting Saurer, Ingersoll Rand, Auster, Ametech, Yazhi Optoelectronics, Mitsubishi, Makino and other well-known domestic and foreign enterprises.
In the first half of this year, after the global fiber laser giant IPG released the industry’s first handheld laser welding system based on the air-cooled platform, GW Laser (GW) launched a mass-produced intelligent handheld laser welder based on energy-efficient 976nm pump technology combined with unique air-cooling technology solutions in China in July. With the continuous improvement of the localization rate of the core devices of lasers, the performance and cost of handheld laser welding present a subversive advantage, with the help of the “demonstration” effect of GW, well-known laser companies in the industry have poured into the track of “mobile handheld welding machines” in the second half of the year.
The Pro A1500W intelligent handheld laser welding machine is the main product shipped by our company in the laser tool sector, with a total of nearly 500 units delivered and in hand orders. Different from the traditional water-cooled handheld laser welding machine, this welding machine adopts the active air-cooled way, no cooling water unit pipes and components, eliminating the trouble of its control and maintenance, reducing costs while increasing portability, improving the overall reliability of the system, and is a subversive revolution for the traditional welding machine market of nearly 10 million units. Recently, GW organized market, technology, process and other related personnel to set up a team to solve the problem of improving the application ability of intelligent handheld laser welding machines in high-quality end customers.
GWLaser: Can you introduce your company’s main products? What are the growth changes in production and operation?
Manager Fanfeng Guo: In recent years, new energy vehicles have risen, the corresponding supporting charging piles have increased, and the sheet metal business of the charging piles received by our company accounts for a large part of the company, with about 1,000 sets of orders per month, and the annual output value is about 150 million. However, the recent national power curtailment policy has a great impact on our industry, forcing us to improve production efficiency in unit time, there are more than 130 direct production workers, of which the most critical professional welders are more than 10 people, welders are too busy to ask temporary workers, but temporary workers who do welders are not easy to find.
GW Laser: Have you ever been exposed to a portable air-cooled laser welder before?
Manager Fanfeng Guo: I am not very familiar with laser welding machines and manufacturers, the specific difference between air cooling and water cooling, I am not very clear, we have a ten-level welder certificate of Master Cai, he focuses on the welding process, he knows more about this aspect; we purchased a handheld welder with an assembled volume several times larger than yours last year, when I saw your products was stunned, how can it be so small, the contrast between volume and weight is too strong, and later I heard them say that this is the difference between water cooling and air cooling. The big guy holding the laser welding machine was too cumbersome to move, and could only be placed in that corner for spot welding for the small ears of the aluminum alloy stamping parts for air conditioning.
Fanfeng Electromechanical: What are the advantages of GW’s air-cooled handheld laser welder compared to traditional welding machine?
GWlaser: Let us boast about ourselves, are a little embarrassed, so to speak, compared with the traditional arc welding process, handheld laser welder in the welding speed, welding quality, follow-up treatment (can greatly reduce the polishing and leveling process costs of labor costs) and other aspects have obvious advantages, so there is a strong potential for substitution. Compared with traditional arc welding, air-cooled handheld laser welder saves about 85% to 90%, and the processing cost can be reduced by about 35%; at the same time, all kinds of editable welding procedures are simple and easy to learn, with a weight of <60kg, and the volume accounts for only 0.1m³, which is less than 1/4 of the traditional laser handheld welding machine.
GW Laser: What are the main welding scenarios of your company? What are the specific requirements?
Master Fanfeng Cai: I am a welding technician with 30 years of experience, I have paid attention to laser welding machines for a long time, and I have learned about IPG products before, but they are too expensive. Our company needs to use the welding process mainly in the 1mm thick sheet carbon steel splicing and aluminum alloy stamping parts, just like you see this charging pile outer cabinet is a typical application, customers require high process accuracy, The seam tolerance of our unloading is basically within 0.5mm, but the tolerance of the pipe material unloading of the support structure is not easy to control, and the joint seam of the plate is greater than 1mm; for the small tolerance of the yin angle straight line or arc, adjust the energy and hand speed, directly stabilize it can be integrated, for the seam between 0.5-1.5mm to fill the wire, which is not like arc welding What kind of seam to fill the wire. Specifically, 90% of the cabinet of our charging pile can be welded with laser welding once, and the local arc welding point is combined.
GW Laser: Master Chen (main training object), what about the use of the feeling?
Fanfeng welder Master Chen: I am the first batch of people to receive laser welding machine training, my biggest feeling is that it is very good to get started, the company’s recent business volume is relatively large, and can not supplement people, old age can not be old overtime, I originally used arc welding a day can almost do 4 such charging pile box cabinet doors, now feel that a day can do more than a dozen, the original arc welding two or three people can finish the work, the same time, handheld welding one person can complete. Take the welding of the front door plate of the new energy charging pile as an example, it has a total of hundreds of welding points, and now I use the electric arc welding joint to firmly structure, and then use laser welding to flat pull. The arc welding technology originally used took 1 and a half hours to complete, and after using an air-cooled handheld welding machine, the time was shortened to less than 30 minutes.
GW Laser: Master Chen, can you be more specific?
Master Chen, Fanfeng welder: I have a strong interest in new technologies and am willing to try these new processes, feeling that in addition to improving the efficiency by more than 3 times, and the welding quality is high, there is no need to polish. In addition, due to the problem of my personal method, I will subconsciously stay for about 0.5 seconds when welding, and then release the laser trigger, which is easy to cause the weld to burn through, and the application engineer helped me adjust the parameters, basically solving this problem. At first, I didn’t believe that it could be welded firmly, until I did a destructive test and the weld was unscathed, and I reassured my doubts, and I would tell other workers how I really felt.
GW Laser: How do you feel about the shortage of professional welders and labor costs?
Manager Fanfeng Guo: Nowadays, young people are more advocating freedom and paying more attention to the quality of life, compared with the boring, repetitive, simple manual labor in manufacturing factories, young people prefer takeaway, express delivery, live broadcasting, self-media and other free emerging occupations. Now I can’t recruit young people, even if I do, I can’t do it for less than a month and then leave. Among them, the main reason is that traditional processing is difficult to get started, and today’s young people are reluctant to spend time practicing these crafts. And your smart air-cooled handheld welder is easy to operate, only requires simple training, even non-professional welders are very easy to get started. These advantages have effectively solved the difficulties of enterprises to a certain extent, in addition, the improvement of efficiency can also dilute labor costs.
Manager Guo finally said that improving quality, efficiency and cost reduction are the goals pursued by the manufacturing industry, and the introduction of GW Laser A1500W smart air-cooled handheld laser welder shortens the processing time, improves product quality, and reduces manufacturing costs, effectively improving the ability of enterprises to respond to market changes. The company is very grateful for the strong support of GW laser Company, and is willing to continue to introduce several intelligent air-cooled handheld laser welder of the same model and maintain long-term cooperation.
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