Two laser sources in one 300 × 340 × 320 mm, 30 kg air cooled cabinet: QCW fiber for welding, MOPA for marking and cutting. No other maker’s parameters are printed here. The M3 column is filled in; theirs is a row list for the sheet already in your hand.
Sheet 1 of 2 · measured on our bench
Sheet 2 of 2 · yours to fill in
Why the search is still open
A DADO laser welder alternative search starts late: one sheet already read, one quotation already in hand. The reason is almost always one of four, and none of them is a welding parameter the other machine failed to hit.
01 / SPACE
A cabinet footprint is one number. The bench a working installation needs is another. On an air cooled machine they are the same number, because the cooling sits behind the rear vents.
300 × 340 × 320 mm · 30 kg · nothing beside it
02 / MACHINES
A welder welds. A name inside a band and a tag cut from sheet are separate purchases, separate footprints and separate operator positions. Both jobs run in the M3 cabinet on the MOPA source.
MOPA 10 W / 20 W / 60 W · 70 × 70 mm field
03 / SUPPLY
One ordinary single phase socket. No water loop, no coolant, no plumbing and no PC: the machine runs from its own 10 inch 1280P Android touchscreen.
AC 220 V · 50 Hz · 2 A · 2 kW total
04 / ANSWERS
The power supply and the QCW fiber source are designed and built in-house. A question about either one reaches the people who designed it, not a reseller’s inbox.
Own power supply · own QCW source
Before comparing anything
A single-function welder’s sheet and a workstation sheet are not the same document. Read row against row, they give a false result in both directions.
Every row on it is about the same beam. These six labels appear on nearly every welder’s document.
The QCW side carries the welding rows. Then the sheet keeps going into a second source.
The welding rows are a contest. The rows past them are a question about what the bench does in a week.Diagram · rows with nothing opposite Pending photo · two sheets, one pencil
Our column, set out once
The whole M3 column in six rows, ready to copy against anything. Each row links to the page that carries the detail, and none of it is expanded again here.
Two laser sources, two heads, one cabinet, one screen. QCW welds under the binocular microscope and camera. MOPA marks and cuts on a galvo head. The two positions do not share an origin: the piece is held again, and the MOPA red light traces the outline on the actual piece before it fires.
Changing headsGold, silver, platinum, titanium, copper, aluminium and steel. Presets load by material at one touch and the spot is trimmed from there.
MetalsLimited to what has been put through the machine: inside and outside band engraving on the rotary device, name necklaces, tags, letter pieces, small metal graphics, thin sheet outlines, logos, colour on stainless steel and brass.
MarkingAir, through the rear vents. No chiller, no coolant, no water loop.
SpecificationsA 10 inch 1280P capacitive Android touchscreen with Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and USB. A 10X binocular microscope through a 20X lens, and a Sony 8 megapixel full colour HD camera on the screen.
On the screenAC 220 V · 50 Hz · 2 A · 2 kW. Routine consumables: protective lenses. Rated source life above 100,000 h. Two years on the laser source, one year on the machine, lenses and consumables excluded.
ConfigurationsSix rows. Copy them into the left column of any comparison and start filling the right.
Diagram · two heads, one cabinetThe one row with their numbers
A footprint is the one row that reads off a public sheet without interpretation. Plan outlines below are drawn to one scale from published figures.
68KG, ABOUT
41KG, ABOUT
30KG
Those two are the only competitor figures on this page.
They are here because size and weight can be read off a public document by anyone. Every other row about another maker’s machine is left for you to fill from the sheet in your hand, which is the next section.
Workshop photograph: a phone beside the cabinet, for scale.
Row labels, not verdicts
Machines that have not been measured here are not characterised here. Find the row on their document, find the same row in the M3 column, and the comparison is yours rather than ours.
Establish whether the unit named there sits inside the cabinet or next to it. Then add its own footprint and its own service interval to the bench you were planning.
M3 rowAir · rear vents · nothing beside
Find the dimensions that go with the weight figure, and ask what bench depth the installed machine needs once the cooling is in place.
M3 row300 × 340 × 320 mm, installed
Check whether the answers describe the same machine on the same bench, or a further purchase alongside it.
M3 rowSame cabinet · MOPA · 70 × 70 mm
Count the entries on the consumable list. Then find what the warranty excludes, and over what period.
M3 rowProtective lenses · 2 yr source, 1 yr machine
Check whether the camera or vision arrangement in the brochure is standard on the quoted machine or an option on it.
M3 row10X binocular + Sony 8 MP, standard
One clarification: the 480P comparison elsewhere on this site is not about SISMA or Orotig.
This site says HD observation at 1080P / 1440P stands against the 480P configurations common in the market. That line is about low-end equipment. Both of those makers offer observation configurations of their own, and nothing here claims to have beaten them.
Where they are stronger · 1 of 3
The established European brands build machines around welding and nothing else. At the top of their range that shows in the energy available for a single pulse. The M3 does not win every welding parameter against them, and on the heaviest sections it does not win.
Theirs to keep
A liquid cooled machine built only to weld is built for a day dominated by this work. The sheet you hold for one of them describes work it was designed around.
The M3 answer
The M3 sheet publishes no maximum weldable section, no minimum piece size and no plate thickness by metal. Those figures are not in our data, and none will be invented. The answer is physical.
On work heavier than that, the same piece will say the other machine is the one to buy.
On pieces arriving one at a time and judged before they are fired on, a returned piece answers the section question better than a row would have.
What the welding limits sheet carriesWhere they are stronger · 2 of 3
The benchmark brands hold years of accumulated process libraries, material by material, alloy by alloy. That is real, it took a long time to build, and a machine that arrives with one carries a lot of other benches’ experience. The M3 answer is smaller, and it sits on the screen.
Parameter sets for cases most benches will never meet, already written before the machine is unpacked.
Shown on the screen as GOLD, STEEL, TITANIUM and SILVER. Selecting one loads a starting set at a single touch.
Look the case up, load the set, weld.
From the preset the operator trims three values. The pedal fires, so both hands stay on the piece.
Correction arrives as documentation, or as a person on site.
The first pulse lands on a hidden face or an offcut of the same alloy, under the 10X binocular microscope through the 20X lens, or on the screen through the Sony 8 megapixel camera. What that shot looks like sets the rest of the joint.
No dial position of their own: platinum, copper and aluminium weld on this machine all the same. Start from the nearest position and correct on that first shot.
Pending photo · first shot at 10XBroad, general, and written about somebody else’s metal.
The parameters used on your test piece come back written down, on your alloy and your section. That sheet is the beginning of your own library.
Done at the bench. The operator does it, not a technician on a visit: operating and maintenance videos sit in the machine, and the interface runs in Chinese and English with other languages on request.
Pending photo · the written parametersWhere they are stronger · 3 of 3
The third advantage the benchmark brands hold is finish, ergonomics and the service structure behind the badge.
If a badge on the optic and a dealer down the road are what the decision rests on, those brands have both.
Every machine welds a tidy joint in a photograph. Send the alloy you actually work in.
Send a Test PieceThe test that needs neither sheet
One comparison needs no figures from either manufacturer. Send an identical test piece to both suppliers and compare what comes back.
Step 1
Same alloy and karat or fineness, same section or sheet thickness, cut from the same stock in the same session. Ask the same job of both: a shank joined, a claw retipped, a chain link closed, an outline cut from your sheet, a name marked inside a band.
If the piece is a customer’s, send an offcut of the same material and keep their work on your bench.
Step 2
The third item matters here. A marked or cut sample made on a second machine in the same building is a different proposition from one made in the same cabinet as the weld.
Step 3
It runs on an M3, and the record of how goes back with it.
Step 4
A piece that needs re-plating before it goes back over the counter has told you something a specification row cannot.
Step 5
Believe the piece rather than either sheet, ours included.
What the test costsTwo offcuts and the post. No machine changes hands, and nothing is committed.
In writing, to both
Put the same questions to us and to whoever else is quoting, in writing, so the answers can be checked later against a machine on your bench. The M3 answers are already filled in.
| Ask both | The M3 answer |
|---|---|
| What is the installed footprint with cooling included, and what sits beside the cabinet? | 300 × 340 × 320 mm · 30 kg. Air cooled through the rear vents. Nothing sits beside it. |
| What supply does it need in volts, frequency and total load, and is the plug fitted for my country? | Single phase AC 220 V · 50 Hz · 2 A · 2 kW. On a different supply, state the voltage and socket before anyone writes a configuration sheet. |
| What does it mark, what does it cut, and in which cabinet? | This cabinet, on the MOPA source, across a 70 × 70 mm field: band engraving, name necklaces, tags, letter pieces, thin sheet outlines. |
| What is needed for inside-band engraving specifically? | The rotary device, the standard fit for that job. A curved inner surface has to turn under the beam on any machine. |
| What is on the routine consumable list, what is the rated source life, and what does the warranty exclude? | Protective lenses. Above 100,000 h rated source life. Two years on the source, one year on the machine; lenses and consumables excluded. |
| Who answers a technical question after delivery, and how many companies does it pass through? | The factory that built the power supply and the QCW source. None in between. |
Two more to ask for. What ships in the box: drawings, an inspection record, the parameters for your own test piece. And photographs and video of the actual machine before dispatch.
Here both are routine: the screen travels in a metal case, and each order is tracked individually.
Send the six questionsPast the welding rows
A comparison between machines is decided by which jobs stay in the building.
1Cabinet · 2 sources
The change is not only in cost. It is in what gets a yes at the counter, and in the work that can be quoted at all. Three jobs arriving mixed is the reason two sources share one cabinet.
Four working days on an M3Before you compare it
Three things are missing from the M3 documentation. Each is named here with what stands in its place.
A test piece instead of a number. Those figures are not in our data, so your alloy at your section is run and returned.
A sample of your sheet and the file. The source comes at 10 W, 20 W and 60 W, and the grade is decided from the pieces you actually cut.
The dial, the adjustable ranges, and the parameters used on your own piece once it has been run.
A gap stated is a row you do not have to discover after delivery.
What the welding limits sheet does not carryKeep reading
Start the test
Cut two offcuts from the same stock. Send one here and the other wherever else you are quoting.
The piece runs on an M3 and comes back with the parameters written down, to read against everything on this page. Then compare the two pieces rather than the two sheets.
Send the First OffcutSend your rows
Six lines are enough. The reply answers each line item against the M3 figures and tells you where to post the offcut.