HANDHELD LASER WELDER

• Speed. Laser welding is typically five times as fast as TIG. This puts money in your pocket directly, while also reducing bottle necks and overheads.

• As much or as little penetration as you want. We can do fine sealing welds, or fully penetrate up to 6mm in one pass, with zero preparation and no post processing.

• Much less distortion. Laser welding heats the metal with a dot about 0.2mm in diameter, so the heat is very localized and only applied where it’s needed. In contrast the arc from a MIG or TIG is closer to 3mm, around 15 times as large as laser.

• Less staining or sugaring, due to the reduced head input.

• Stonger welds. The narrower and more localized weld cools quicker, with less annealing or loss of material properties. The grain size is smaller.

• Much less skill is required, so you don’t have to use highly paid and hard to find welding technicians.

• Basically zero spatter and much less clean up. Big savings in post processing.

• Integrated cleaning. We have cleaning modes to clean staining from welds. Some customers have purchased machines just to use them for cleaning welds due to the large savings over TIG brushing or pickling.

• Compared to CNC or roboic welding, hand held laser welders are more flexible and don’t requre programming. They can be used for one off jobs, small or large batches.

• Wire feeding and pre-set parameters allow low skilled workers to perform laser welding comparable to TIG master welders, and much faster.

• Safer in most ways.  There is much less electrocution risk as there is no arc. Pacemakers are less affected.  Eye safety requires special care per our safety section. No ultraviolet radiation is output by the laser, only some may be emitted by the white hot molten metal, but we’ve not had any noticable “sunburn” from it. Spatter is very rare.  Strong reflections can burn your skin, or melt welding helmets because they are in the reflection zone.  This is why our new welding helmet has extra shielding. Eye safety requires special care!

• Laser welders are not good at filling large gaps. It can be done, but a MIG is better for gap filling. Sometimes small design or trim line changes are required to maximise the benefits of laser welding. i.e. Minimise gaps.

• Eye safety. Most laser welders are infrared and invisible. However infrared is focused by the eye and dangerous for unprotected eyes.  Correctly rated laser glasses must be worn (and a laser welding helmet such as our new Mk2 version).  See our safety section for further information.

• Fire risk higher than TIG, but similar to MIG.  However we believe MIG is the worst because the spatter travels to non-visible locations.  Although a laser weld is much cooler due to focused heat input, copper or aluminum can cause specular (unabated) reflections.  In the worst case, (gun held steady for a long time, which is rare or silly) a reflection could melt plastic or set flammable items on fire up to 2 metres or so.  Flammable items must be kept further back.

Hand held laser welders range from around $13,000 for a 1500W water cooled model such as our G5-1500WC up to $50,000 or more for a European or Japanese branded 1500W or 2000W machine (some of which use cheaper brands of laser welders inside…). 

Our low prices are because the business model is to sell the best system (or at least one of the best) at the lowest cost, and minimise margins and overheads. Other brands can cost considerably more. IPG’s cheapest Lightweld 1500W costs $22,000 or about $9,000 more than our cheapest 1500W model, extending up to about $33,000 for their top specification air cooled XR model, excluding $1,900 wire feeder.

Even our high end laser welders cost much less, with our most expensive models at only $17,800 MSRP (retail price) for our 3000W water cooled model, or the same cost for our portable 2000W Lightwelder20. 

Wire feeders in the USA tend to be sold as an optional extra.  Our single wire feeders cost $990 but similar wire feeders cost about twice as much from other brands such as IPG.

Wobble or weaving is the term used to describe movement of the laser beam. The laser beam must be kept moving so it heats the metal rather than melting through it. The simplest wobble pattern is just scanning left and right in one axis, known as single wobble. Double wobble moves the beam in two axes, allowing it to trace shapes such as circles, triangles, hourglass and D shapes. We find double wobble welds better in many situations, particularly for thin sheet metal such as 25 gauge to 11 gauge. With thicker materials single wobble can be the best solution, but you really want both, which means buying a welder with double weaving.  Double wobble heads can weld in single wobble mode, so you get the option to use either.

A laser welder can fill gaps up to .080″ (2mm) or so when it is used to feed wire into the gap.  For large gaps a MIG welder may be the better choice, at the cost of high heat input and distortion.  However laser welding delivers massive benefits when the gaps are reduced or eliminated.  Hence the best solution is to reduce the size of gaps.  Laser welders in the wire-pushed mode are able to fill gaps up to .040″ (1mm) with large wire like .065″ (1.6mm).  In this mode the speed is controlled by the wire feeder rather than holding back to fill gaps, and very little skill is required!

When fusing (no wire used) the gap must be small, around 0.2mm or so ideally. If you have gaps larger than .020″ we recommend tuning the trim lines or changing joint types so laser welding will give excellent welds.

Testing has shown the best angle for the laser welding head is between 45 and 60 degrees to the weld bead axis, like the image shown, which is closer to 60 degrees. When welding internal or external fillets the gun is normally in the middle of the internal angle, so the gun is then at a compound angle.

The focal point is fixed, but the output tube length is changed to focus the laser spot size.  Focal length is determined by the focal lens, and inherent in the head design. However you can move the head up or down, and even slight variations in spot size make a big difference when welding aluminium. This is because aluminum requires a finely focused beam (high power density) to penetrate and form a weld pool. Our welders have a sharp focus and this is a key reason for their excellent performance on aluminum. The top spec IPG Lightweld XR has a very small spot size also, but IPG’s base and mid range models have a lower power density, as witnessed by some of the videos of them welding aluminum and taking a little longer to start the weld.

Stainless steel is quite tolerant of focus, and welds beatifully with ease.

We find carbon steel benefits from a different spot size, as it is less tolerant of high power density and can boil off, showing up as sparks and pock marks. Note that changing focus the wrong way can create back reflections which are harmful to a laser source, so be sure to read our instruction manual when you buy one of our machines. The user manual shipped with our machines has a wealth of information inside.

Most laser welders are set up for pull welding, so the gun is pulled towards the operator. This is mainly because the nozzle must be in contract with the workpiece for the laser to fire (as a safety measure to avoid the head becoming a laser pistol). The gun travels more smoothly if dragged than if pushed, hence pull welding is used.

Yes, our 2kW laser welders are excellent value on a $ per Watt basis.
In 2024 a 1500W welder is the recommended entry point at $12,800.  1.5kW will laser weld up to 3mm steel or stainless sheet, and 3mm or thicker aluminum at high speed in one pass.  However, for any company that needs to weld thicker material, our G5-2000WC water cooled version is not a large step up in price.  It costs $2,200 more (only 17%) to get 2kW, a power increase of 33%.  This can run large jobs with the high throughput and quality that laser welding delivers. That is excellent value and will quickly pay back the small extra investment.
However the best value on the market in Watts per dollar is our 3kW model, G5-3000WC.  This has double the power of a 1500W unit but costs only $17,800. That is less than HALF the price of the cheapest IPG Lightweld 1500.