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Also, in the video -- apparently elon had the *vibe* that those chinese laser welders would do the job and the team eventually agreed months/years later after traditional methods didn't work
Imagine the tooling they'd need if they stuck with either carbon fiber or tried friction stir welding a metallic structure!
Saw the same video
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john rehagen
@John_Rehagen
Handheld laser welding is the future
I spoke with some local manufacturing recently. They said they'd tried laser welding and it wasn't a good fit for what they're doing - some of this is probably due to different parameters for normal manufacturing, but maybe the tools in use at this level too.
Laser welding is great for thin sheet metal, which I guess Starship is made from. It's not going to replace traditional arc welding though.