So, to clarify - what i have is a very nice IPG lightweld 1500 XR.
They are normally not cheap (30k), and are very nice and well thought out safety wise.
One of the fun parts when i lived in the bay area was that as companies got acquired, they didn't know what to do with the stuff they had before acquisition that isn't needed anymore, and it either sits in a warehouse, or gets auctioned off (or both!)
So for example, at one point, Google (after acquiring terra bella and some other companies) had like 5 or 6 very nice 5 axis VMC's sitting around collecting dust. Each was worth well over 250k. They already had plenty of VMC's in the machine shop, etc, and didn't need these, and it was not worth the trouble to sell them.
At least back then.
In my case, I was able to get this welder for way less than half price.
The lightweld's have come down in price over the years, and that will keep happening.
They are pretty much the most expensive laser welders though, you can easily get one for 10k these days.
The truth is, however, if you go cheaper than this, what often what gets overlooked is safety. So some of them in the lowest price range don't even require you touch the gun to metal before letting you fire, etc.
All of them can weld the same, so if you go looking, look at other things too.
THe other thing - one of the nice things about laser welding is that it's improving very fast. So similar to fiber, running multiple types of lasers or optics in the cable is not particularly more difficult than running one. They just add more fibers (it's not quite the only issue, but you get the point).
Why does this matter?
Because it means you can run another laser or something to monitor the weld and adjust parameters on the fly. Which lightweld and others are starting to do. So if you are moving the gun too fast/slowly, or got the power wrong or whatever, it will compensate automatically
This probably won't ever happen on mig/tig. The lasers are heavily computer controlled already, this just adds a feedback loop.
In any case, my take would be - if you want to play with them as a hobbyist, or have too much money, they are cool
Otherwise i'd wait ~5 years and what you get will probably be 5-10x better for the same price.
I'm of the opinion that the guy or gal is giving us valuable information so let him rip instead of asking him to change stuff. If we can't google a simple acronym with the right context which we already know, we're on the wrong site.
They make hardware prototypes. When you do that having your own machine shop can lower the iteration time and thus speed up the development.
Just from the top of my head: waymo develops their own lidars, akamai obviously needed a ton of machining for the kite, project loon probably had machined components. And those are just the flashy examples we heard about outside of the company. They can have ton of other projects which didn’t get to the point where we heard about them but required hardware prototyping.
Google used to indulge employees' interests. They fund, or used to fund, "the generator", a build shop in Reno. I know a Googler who openly worked on a small art project at the office, albeit a small part of the work.
I'm not saying that Google has machine shops purely for burning man. But I strongly suggest that when the idea has been floated in various locations, one recurring theme is "yeah let's! And let's get some lasers and propane burners!", and I also believe that some managers were thinking "great, this is the culture we want."
The register calls it "the chocolate factory" as a reference to Willy Wonka. Shame they descended into evil.
I don’t mean the rank and file but Page and Brin. They’ve only ever gone the glamping sparkle pony route.
> I'm not saying that Google has machine shops purely for burning man. But I strongly suggest that when the idea has been floated in various locations, one recurring theme is "yeah let's! And let's get some lasers and propane burners!", and I also believe that some managers were thinking "great, this is the culture we want."
There was! It was the predecessor to the Garage. I suspect because the machine shop boys wouldn’t let them use the real toys.
I see a bunch of them for about 1k on aliexpress. Any thoughts on those? I realize getting the cheapest possible unit is probably not the safest idea with laser welding.
Some sharks have to swim to move water over their gills. Not even close to all of them and it's not due to their heartbeat being connected to their swimming.
One of the fun parts when i lived in the bay area was that as companies got acquired, they didn't know what to do with the stuff they had before acquisition that isn't needed anymore, and it either sits in a warehouse, or gets auctioned off (or both!)
So for example, at one point, Google (after acquiring terra bella and some other companies) had like 5 or 6 very nice 5 axis VMC's sitting around collecting dust. Each was worth well over 250k. They already had plenty of VMC's in the machine shop, etc, and didn't need these, and it was not worth the trouble to sell them. At least back then.
In my case, I was able to get this welder for way less than half price.
The lightweld's have come down in price over the years, and that will keep happening.
They are pretty much the most expensive laser welders though, you can easily get one for 10k these days.
The truth is, however, if you go cheaper than this, what often what gets overlooked is safety. So some of them in the lowest price range don't even require you touch the gun to metal before letting you fire, etc.
All of them can weld the same, so if you go looking, look at other things too.
THe other thing - one of the nice things about laser welding is that it's improving very fast. So similar to fiber, running multiple types of lasers or optics in the cable is not particularly more difficult than running one. They just add more fibers (it's not quite the only issue, but you get the point).
Why does this matter? Because it means you can run another laser or something to monitor the weld and adjust parameters on the fly. Which lightweld and others are starting to do. So if you are moving the gun too fast/slowly, or got the power wrong or whatever, it will compensate automatically
This probably won't ever happen on mig/tig. The lasers are heavily computer controlled already, this just adds a feedback loop.
It also enables real time certification of a weld - see https://www.ipgphotonics.com/products/laser-weld-measurement for an example (this is a separate product, but you get the idea)
In any case, my take would be - if you want to play with them as a hobbyist, or have too much money, they are cool Otherwise i'd wait ~5 years and what you get will probably be 5-10x better for the same price.