Representative case
From plasma and TIG to fiber laser: a sheet-metal job shop in Central Europe
A 35-person shop stopped outsourcing stainless cutting and welds thin stainless about four times faster, with a smaller laser than it first asked for.
- Cutting
- 2.2 kW fiber, 1500 × 3000 mm
- Welding
- 2 × 1.5 kW handheld
- Weld finishing
- 200 W pulsed cleaner
- Order to production
- 12 weeks
The starting point
Where they started
- Customer
- A 35-person job shop making brackets, enclosures and stainless parts for food-equipment makers.
- Where
- Central Europe
- Before
- A plasma table that left heavy dross on stainless, three TIG welders as the bottleneck, and all stainless laser cutting outsourced to a competitor.
Requirements
What they needed
- Cut 1–4 mm stainless and 1–10 mm mild steel in-house at production quality
- Weld 1–3 mm stainless without the grinding and pickling that TIG needed
- Machines for a 400 V, 50 Hz supply, with English software, manuals and EU conformity documents
- Protective lenses and nozzles in stock, and support in the shop’s working hours
What we supplied
Equipment, by stage
-
Make
Cutting
- 2,200 W fiber laser cutter, 1500 × 3000 mm (Maxwave 1530)
- Nitrogen cutting for stainless, oxygen for mild steel
- Nesting software and post-processor set up
-
Make
Welding
- Two 1,500 W water-cooled handheld welders (Maxwave MW-HW1500)
- Wire feeders for fillet and gap welds
- Gas and fixture advice for the shop’s three main parts
-
Make
Finishing and safety
- 200 W pulsed laser cleaner (Maxwave MW-C200) to remove heat tint from stainless welds
- Laser-safety curtains, eyewear and a controlled-area plan
- Fume extraction sized for the cutter and the welding bay
Acceptance
How it was proven
- Before ordering: six of the shop’s parts cut, welded and cleaned in Wuhan, with video, weld cross-sections and the settings used
- Before shipping: each machine run on the same parts and recorded on video
- On site: a 3 mm stainless nest cut within ±0.1 mm of drawing, and 2 mm stainless corner welds passing the shop’s own dye-penetrant check
Results
What it achieved
- Stainless cutting
- Brought in-house; outsourcing stopped
- Weld time, 1.5 mm enclosure corner
- ≈ 4 × faster than TIG
- Post-weld finishing
- Laser cleaning instead of pickling paste
- Saved against the first specification
- ≈ USD 30,000 (2.2 kW cutter instead of 6 kW)
- Order to production
- 12 weeks
Schedule
From contract to running
- 01
Sample tests
Six parts tested in Wuhan; report, video and a quote for the exact set-up.
Weeks 1–2
- 02
Build and run
Machines built for 400 V, 50 Hz with English software; each run on the customer’s parts before crating.
Weeks 3–6
- 03
Ship
One consolidated container by sea and rail to the customer’s door.
Weeks 7–11
- 04
Install and train
Five days on site: installation, cutting parameters, welding and laser-safety training.
Week 12
Who did what
One contract, several factories
ZeroLine
- Checked the part mix and advised against the 6 kW cutter the shop had asked about: 95 % of its parts were 4 mm or thinner, and the thick plate stays on the plasma table
- Arranged the sample tests and sent the report
- One contract and one container for the cutter, welders, cleaner and extraction
- Conformity documents for the EU shipment, freight and delivery to the door
- On-site training and a spare-parts kit; video support afterwards
The factories
- Maxwave Laser built and tested the cutter, the welders and the cleaner
- A partner factory in Wuhan supplied the fume extraction
Buy the laser for your part mix, not for the thickest plate you see twice a year. The difference paid for the welders.
Behind this project
The solution and services it used
- Metal fabrication Cutting, bending, welding, cleaning and marking, set up as one working shop.
- Sample testing Your part, processed in Wuhan on the machine we would quote.
- Factory acceptance and inspection Nothing ships before it has run. You watch the test, then you pay.
- Shipping and compliance Export documents, crating, one consolidated shipment, and the papers your market needs.
- Installation and training Engineers on your site until it runs at rate, and a team that can run it after.
More cases
Other projects, end to end
- 8 PPM module and PACK line for a storage integrator in the Gulf An integrator that imported finished PACKs moved assembly into its own hall: one 55 m line built for a 60 Hz grid, first PACK about six months after contract.
- FTTH materials for 30,000 homes in East Africa, in four lots An ISP moving from fixed wireless to fiber bought every passive item for two cities from one supplier, lot by lot to its rollout plan, at prices fixed for three lots.
- Pre-terminated cabling and optics for a 200-rack data hall in Southeast Asia A colocation operator opened its second data hall on the planned date, with cabling made to its rack drawings, labelled for the installer and tested piece by piece.
- Pulsed laser cleaning for tyre moulds in South Asia A tyre plant moved mould cleaning from off-line dry-ice blasting to laser cleaning in the press, and cut press downtime per mould from about 4.5 hours to 1.5.
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Start a project like this
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