Estes was honored to have been featured in the industry-standard magazine The Fabricator in November. The magazine chose Estes as an example of the growing interest in 3-D laser welding, and we were more than happy to tell our story and share some of our knowledge with The Fabricator and its many readers. It was a great opportunity to make people aware of the potential involved in turning to 3-D laser welding as a solution. 3-D laser welding can already save a customer substantial costs in secondary and finishing processes, and its design limits and speed thresholds are still being tested.
The tolerances and near-seamless joints required for laser welding mean that we often will reverse engineer a customer’s design in order to figure out the best way to achieve it. Design for laser welding differs a bit from design for traditional welding, and our experience with the process allows us to advise and assist our customers on the optimal layout. Combining the original design with our recommendations for laser welding manufacturability often leads to breakthroughs and improvements that the client didn’t realize were possible.
We’ve also been impressed by the speeds we’ve seen 3-D laser welding achieve. For straight-line geometries, we’ve reached 200 in. per minute., and speeds of 60 IPM and higher for other processes. Be sure to check out the entire article here or in your November 2012 issue of The Fabricator.
