Laser Markers Are...
usually CO2 or ND:YAG and are used to permanently mark a wide variety of things. Usually, it is economical where ink will not stick or wear well or where parts handling is a problem, and where the markings must be very small, as on leadless capacitors, resistors, and the metal cases of hermetically sealed IC's. Big areas of application that I am familiar with are IC marking, wafer marking, and biomedical implant marking, but there are hundreds ranging from large aluminum name plates to microscopic medical and electronics applications.
These machines steer the laser beam with galvonometer swivelled mirrors to literally write out the characters or geometric figures the way you would with a pen, or the way vector graphics systems work (if you know what that is, you are dating yourself). The name of the game is throughput (as always) and software sophistication. Many of these systems now look like printers: they accept HPGL, Postscript and other printer "languages" so that you can literally design your marking problem with a program like Word and just "print" it (though I suspect that more effort is required than I am implying).
There are several manufacturers in this game. Lumonics is one I am most familiar with. You can check them out at lumonics.com. I think they are about number 4 in the market. I don't know where SAL stands.
JMAR has not discussed this much, and I hope they don't. It is a mature market with hot competition based on incremental innovation. I would think that JMAR has a much better chance for real success in true micromachining and application specific problems where the (hopefully) unique or unusual characteristics of the BriteLight will give it a significant value.
BTW, I agree with the others and offer my thanks and appreciation for the great posts, and I think they are right about you working too hard at this <g>. |
