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I'm dying of curiosity how cheap a cheap laser welder can be.


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.

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.


VMC == Vertical Machining Center

PSWAATY == Please Say What the Acronyms Are. Thank You.


> PSWAATY

I'm keeping that one.


Usually i do, but there is one acronym in the entire 450 words, and it doesn't really matter to the point what the thing was?


If the definition doesn't matter, better to use a more generic term than a more specific/cryptic one.


OK. Thanks for the informative post. Don't want to discourage you from more.


I agree with you.

It's also pretty easy to figure out what you're talking about from context.


It's the second post in which he did this. And how should anyone know whether it's important to know what it means without knowing what it means?


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.


> plenty of VMC's in the machine shop

So now I have to know why Google has a machine shop. Beyond the obvious "why not?"


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.


Duh! Of course!

I think Google and I only think search/ads. I forgot Alphabet has all that other stuff going on.


So does Alphabet.


All other projects are on the cancellation list, so don't worry overmuch about them.


IIRC it was started in earnest for Nexus phone prototypes in the early 2010s.


We had one at the Facebook offices too, as a side-effect of the Oculus acquisition. Hardware prototyping is fun


Google as a company manufactures hardware, it makes sense to have a machine shop for prototypes.


Google was founded by burners who want to take cool shit to the desert.


They are in the rich people’s glamping camp. They haven’t lifted a finger on the playa, ever.


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.


Lots of reasons. Prototyping consumer goods of various sorts, etc.


> 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.

Darn, we were trying to get a mill for the NYC office's makerspace. It was probably a safety issue and not a parts procurement issue, though.


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.


> So some of them in the lowest price range don't even require you touch the gun to metal before letting you fire, etc.

Are you able to attach them to the heads of sharks?


If you can get them to stay still long enough, maybe.


PSA: Sharks die quickly if you get them still. Their heartbeat is connected to the swimming motion.


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.

https://www.britannica.com/story/do-sharks-really-die-if-the...


Thanks. In my defense, I heard this from my diving instructor who is a marine biologist.


It is a thing. It's just not as universal as people try to claim. There's a lot of biology in the marine world. No one can be an expert on all of it.


I don't have one yet so cant really advise on quality, but I was recently looking and you can pick up a 2.5kW laser welder from about $15k. They are slightly cheaper (around 12k) from alibaba, but then you will be looking at import duties, warranty complexities, etc


Yeah, that's the problem with some of the more expensive Alibaba/Aliexpress stuff. The list price is attractive, but once you add in all the extras like duties, transportation from the port of entry to your location, warranty difficulty etc., there's not much price difference from heading over to the local Kubota dealership.

Still, some of those little tracked tractors on TikTok are interesting. If I could somehow raise enough money to start importing them, I'm sure I could sell quite a few.


A lot of folks find those little chineese tractors at auctions in the US. There are folks who handle all the import and then resell them. Can be a great deal but many of them need some mods, like better cooling, to really shine.


There's a killer Neal Stephenson plotline in here somewhere. Redneck protagonist zapping enemy drones with a modified laser welder.


Hmmm.

I'm black, but my wife did anoint me to the position of "honorary redneck" some time ago. Neighbor has stopped with the drone overflights of my property, but still, you're giving me ideas...


Be careful as far as the FAA is concerned drones get the same legal protection as a plane with people in them so messing with them is legally hazardous.


I know. Hence the laser: blind the camera first and they can't prove that it didn't mysteriously drop out of the sky as soon as it passed the property line.


Go get em cowboy!


Oh yes: https://youtu.be/xNmbvaUzC8Q

This is why we can't have nice things


It's rare to have such a clear illustration of the difference between intelligence and wisdom.


There's no way this stuff isn't giving the secret service nightmares.

This guy set ablaze the inside of a vehicle through closed windows from a significant distance.


I had to look it up, because I thought that was what "Reason" was in Snowcrash.

I was mistaken: Reason was a railgun.


The weird part of reason is it is also (in the family of) a mini gun with it's multiple rotating barrels.


I feel obliged to mention that this does feature prominently in Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars trilogy. The single most important piece of infrastructure on Mars is a space elevator, but not everyone on the planet is happy with how the owners of the space elevator are running things.



https://www.everlastgenerators.com/catalog/laser-welders this is probably the easiest one to buy from a reputable (non alibaba) company. its $17k, so not "cheap", but hardly expensive.

My gut says they'll be for sale at $2-5k within 2 years at the rate things are going.


A quick search is showing me new machines in the $7k range. You could probably pick up a used one for a few thousand less. This is cheaper than I would have thought, honestly - a decent full MIG rig is not exactly cheap.


They are coming down in price very quickly.

The materials cost is really not very high (no idea on the laser itself, but the rest is easily <1k. Probably <500.). The R&D cost was probably very high to start (but also coming down).




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