I may be miss remembering, but don’t we have a laser welder in a tiny room in the metal shop? I have some long aluminum welds and I am not proficient enough with the tig yet… Hoping to learn the laser welder. Is it operational, and do I need an additional class for it? If it is not operational, how can I help to get it working? Thank you
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The laser welder is working, but we haven’t gotten the training class for it together yet, for many reasons. And I’ve just agreed to let the lasers area lead use that room for a couple of weeks to test their new laser, so it probably won’t be available until after that.
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Any chance I could pay for a fast pass for training, and coordinate with the laser lead and use when they aren’t in the room?
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I’ll share that cost 
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There should be a PDF manual in the Wiki. When I looked at it, good photos. At one point in time there was one attached to the machine in a three ring binder. Also alot of “checks” (water on chiller, right input voltage, dry compressed air, etc.). Other than that a bit of Chinese garble to me when I read it since I did not have the machine in front of me. Good to see someone interested in machines that have been gathering dust. Good luck!
The MOPA being staged in there isn’t really the blocker, it can be moved when the time comes.
The main issue is that there’s no class or SOP developed for the welder yet, and developing that curriculum is the same lift whether it’s a private session or a full class. So I don’t believe that’s something that can be fast-tracked ahead of the group rollout, even on a paid basis.
There’s also some room infrastructure that still needs to come together before the welder is ready to run, but the class development is the longer pole.
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Is there something I can do to assist? I am happy to research and learn. I have no experience with the machine, but happy to develop training to submit for approval. I understand that our resources and man hours are taxed with other obligations, but I hate to see a machine unusable.
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What are you trying to weld?
Hi Patrick, do you have some time this week to meet at Asmbly or virtually? We would be grateful for any help getting this onboarded.
Evan, at the March shop leads meeting, I had already proposed putting Jon Staton, the man who figured out how the machine works and is going to teach the intro classes, in touch with Education so you guys could assist him in developing the intro class. I guess that never happened. If one of you could reach out to him for that purpose, that would be great.
In the meantime, that is not the only obstacle to using the laser welder. If someone wants to meet with me on Sunday to discuss setting up the ventilation system properly — the temporary setup I put together as proof of concept fell apart (not surprising, since it was literally balanced on sticks) — that could speed up matters. It is not a trivial undertaking.
Believe me, I am not happy at how long this has been delayed, and I bear a lot of responsibility for that. But I am also not going to expedite its availability at the expense of safety and proper setup.
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Thanks for the response Ethan. We’re still hoping to include Jon in the onboarding process as he is already experienced. I’m not proposing we shortcut or bypass any of the safety prerequisites, just seeing if we can get additional hands on the remaining infrastructure and documentation needs.
Happy to help wherever I can. Ethan still want me to come by Sunday?
I can also be in sunday to help
I will be there around 11 am to describe what needs to be done.
Please post the list here. I have a bit more time and can help.
I had sort of started a class frame work a bit ago. Jon was also working on it?
Headed up now. Be there about 11:15. Happy to help with whatever
What was decided or discussed yesterday?
Eric and Patrick were working on fixing (upgrading, actually) the ventilation setup. Then I’m going to get people together to work on the training class.
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We got the ventilation knocked out. There was a slight offset so we used a short section of flex to make it work.
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That is amazing. Thank you so much!