Building shapes out of powder and wire

Building shapes out of powder and wire

Deposition welding is a generating process that is applied for surface finishing as well as repairing or modifying existing components. Depending on the task at hand, either manual or automated laser deposition welding is used.
Manual laser deposition welding: the laser beam melts the filler wire and deposits material on the workpiece surface.
Manual laser deposition welding: the laser beam melts the filler wire and deposits material on the workpiece surface.

Manual laser deposition welding

In the case of manual deposition welding, the welder guides the filler material "by hand" to the area to be welded. A thin wire with a diameter between 0.15 and 0.6 millimeters is primarily used as filler material in this process. The laser beam melts the wire. The molten material forms a strong bond with the substrate, which is also melted, and then solidifies, leaving behind a small raised area. The welder continues in this fashion, spot by spot, line by line, and layer by layer, until the desired shape is achieved. Argon shields the work process from the ambient air. Finally, the part is restored to its original shape by grinding, lathing, milling, EDM etc.
When coating the surface, several powder coatings are either melted onto one another or next to one another, as required. The individual welding paths must precisely overlap in order to achieve a texture that is free from errors.
When coating the surface, several powder coatings are either melted onto one another or next to one another, as required. The individual welding paths must precisely overlap in order to achieve a texture that is free from errors.

Automated laser deposition welding

In the case of automated deposition welding, the machine guides the filler material to the area to be welded. Although the material can also be a wire, this process primarily uses metal powders. Metal powder is applied in layers to a base material and fused to the base material and is fused to it without pores or cracks. The metal powder forms a high-tensile weld joint with the surface. After cooling, a metal layer develops that can be machined mechanically. A strength of this process is that it can be used to build up a number of similar or differing metal layers.

Highly productive processing with no downtime

Scanner welding – Highly productive processing with no downtime
Scanner welding today enables highly productive and flexible production line layouts, making welding in series production faster, more accurate, and thus more cost-effective than traditional welding processes.
The scanner principle.

In scanner welding, the beam guidance is done using mobile mirrors [1]. The beam is guided by changing the angles of the mirrors.[4]  A processing field [3] determine which weld can be carried out with the highest dynamics and precision. The processing speed and size of the focus diameter at the workpiece depends on the imaging properties of the optic, the beam incidence angle, the laser beam quality and the material.
 Using the method of an additional lens system [2], the focus point can also be offset extremely dynamically in the Z direction, in order to process three-dimensional components completely, without moving either the processing head or the part.

Due to the very fast translation movements, downtime is nearly eliminated, and the laser unit can produce during nearly 100% of the available fabrication time.
Scanner welding in action.

During welding, the scanner optics can also be guided over a workpiece in conjunction with a robot. This "flying" movement is what inspired the term "welding on the fly": the robot and the scanner optic synchronize their movements in real time. The use of a robot increases the workspace significantly, permitting true three-dimensional part processing.

To program a PFO, you can use a convenient editor which can construct and save welding figures on a workpiece.

High-power disk lasers with high beam quality are used as beam sources. One or more flexible fiber-optic laser cables lead the laser light from the laser unit to the processing station.