North America's largest metal forming, fabricating, welding and finishing event heads to Orange County Convention Center in October 2024. FABTECH provides a convenient "one stop shop" venue where you can meet with world-class suppliers, see the latest industry products and developments, and find the tools to improve productivity, increase profits and discover new solutions to all of your metal forming, fabricating, welding and finishing needs.
North America's Largest Metal Forming, Fabricating, Welding and Finishing Event
Inline Laser Weld Monitoring and Control Offers Unmatched Quality Assurance
By David Fisher, Technical Editor at IPG Photonics on on
IPG Photonics (booth B19038) is revolutionizing welding! The LDD-700, on display at their booth, offers unmatched real-time multi-factor laser welding quality assurance that can be used to increase quality and throughput across countless industries and welding applications. As compared with traditional sectioning, the LDD-700 provides non-destructive measurements without the associated time and cost of traditional sectioning. Measurements can be taken before welding occurs to prevent bad welds from being made or measurements can be taken during the weld if cycle time is the priority. Every measurement is expressed in calibrated units, which means that results are comparable between different shifts, lines, suppliers, months and factories globally.
The system produces a low-power measurement beam through the same optics that deliver the welding laser. LDD-700 sees what the process beam sees, which enables measurements to be rapidly conducted across multiple locations on the part. Pre-weld monitoring modes include tracking of the seam position, checking the working distance to the material, and looking for gaps, bad fixturing or bad fit-up BEFORE processing begins. In-weld real-time monitoring at the bottom of the keyhole records the penetration and fusion depth of the weld for loss of or over-penetration and process instability. Post-weld inspection measures properties such as the height of the finished weld surface, the width of the weld bead and the presence of surface defects like pits and blowouts.
The system has been designed to make smart manufacturing even smarter, and even more flexible. LDD-700 records and communicates real-time data for every part: before, during and after each weld. When degradation and weld failures occur, LDD-700 alerts operators and systems to take corrective action ensuring that normal operations resume quickly and only good parts are sent to customers.
Weld monitoring with the LDD-700 enables manufacturers to reduce scrap and facilitates early detection of defective sub-assemblies by providing more complete and accurate records for safety-critical applications than was previously possible. By allowing QA procedures to be streamlined, manufactures can respond immediately to quality issues saving time and lowering overall operating costs.
Inline weld monitoring was initially introduced for welding beams with fixed optics. IPG has added functionality for applications that require joining of dissimilar materials and challenging non-ferrous alloys, where wobble-head welding drastically improves quality. Integrating inline monitoring on laser scanner heads enables welding in a larger field of view for multiple parts or multiple welds per part. This combination is especially beneficial across components for the e-mobility sector.
Moreover, this system is critical to lowering the total cost of manufacturing and ownership of EVs for the general public. Recalls for all sorts of automotive products will be reduced, many of which are safety critical like batteries, airbags, seating and crash protection structures. Ultimately, both customers and manufacturer stakeholders all pay for the risks of defects. Enhanced quality monitoring systems allow broader application of quality standards through higher specificity and automation. Less defects get through; avoiding real costs in dollars and lives.
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FABTECH 2024
About the Expo
North America's largest metal forming, fabricating, welding and finishing event heads to Orange County Convention Center in October 2024. FABTECH provides a convenient "one stop shop" venue where you can meet with world-class suppliers, see the latest industry products and developments, and find the tools to improve productivity, increase profits and discover new solutions to all of your metal forming, fabricating, welding and finishing needs.
