Trying to define laser applications is an endless pursuit. Everything from computers to sporting goods involve lasers as part of their development, and every day engineers are finding new applications and ways to use them.
Here are just some of the laser applications that have become industry standards across the globe.
Lasers can cut metals, diamonds, microprocessors, human tissue—and everything in between. Found in virtually every industry, laser cutters provide unparalleled cut quality, accuracy, speed and ROI.
Laser cutting works on almost any material due to the expansive range of laser wavelengths and beam powers. For example, a material might reflect visible light but absorb ultraviolet or infrared light. As a result, you can continue to source the best material for your products and still take advantage of the many benefits laser cutting offers.
Laser drilling works on a variety of materials—from stainless steel to pharmaceutical pills. Depending on the size and tolerance of the hole, drilling can involve simply boring a hole through the material. It can also involve trepanning, during which the laser makes an initial hole and then increases the size by spiraling in ever-widening circles. We can design trepanning processes to happen On-the-Fly at very high speeds. Our tablet drillers, for example, can process up to 140,000 pharmaceutical tablets per hour.
Our laser systems can mark over 600 feet of wire per minute, etch over 1,000 characters per second and mark serial numbers and barcodes so small the human eye can barely detect them.
The applications for laser marking are endless—from engraving golf club heads to marking serial numbers on miniaturized semiconductors. Our laser systems focus the beam within microns of the same place—making laser marking the most repeatable process available. Less bad parts means you have more time to make the products that drive your business.
Like laser cutting, the uses for laser welding cover a variety of applications—from automobile frame construction, to micro-welding beads as small as 0.02 millimeters. We even offer plastic welding systems, which achieve significant advantages in speed and join size compared to ultrasonic methods.
Laser welding reaches places human hands cannot at speeds exceeding 200 welds per minute. Paired with automated systems, laser welding increases your throughput, lowers manufacturing costs and eliminates the number of rejected parts down your production line.
By integrating robotics into your industrial laser system, you can improve the precision and flexibility of your material handling efforts—increasing efficiency and throughput. Our engineers have extensive experience combining laser systems and robots in a variety of ways.
Modern laser technology takes the benefits of automation further, adding extreme precision and repeatability. We design and build a variety of automated laser processing systems—from simple parts handling robots, to complex tablet drilling machines.
We offer a variety of optical configurations, including through the optics vision (TTOV)—a complex, yet critical camera setup for laser systems within high-speed manufacturing lines. The camera system utilizes the same lens as the laser, improving the speed of the camera’s field of view.
Our On-the-Fly laser technology keeps your parts moving through the laser field before, during and after lasing in one continuous flow. By eliminating takt time, our On-the-Fly systems reduce operating and labor costs, increase your processing speeds and improve ROI.
In addition to laser systems, we supply custom control solutions. Our CMS Process Engine provides a uniform HMI to all CMS systems. Set up as a process editor, it lets you easily arrange various modules to perform a particular task.
Our in-house machine shop produces up to 90 custom parts every week and makes 99 percent of the parts for our custom laser systems. Our machine capabilities include SurfCam programming stations, CNC machines, mill machines—and more.
From start to finish, we leverage machine vision technology to deliver accurate, repeatable product quality and validate the results to match your exact requirements.
