Retrofitment of Laser Cladding System with CNC Machine for Hybrid Layer Manufacturing

MIG can deposit with a very high deposition rate but fails in realizing the fine features. The precise deposition of the laser cladding process makes it different from the others. Therefore, in future, MIG, TIG or laser cladding will be used as per the requirement. In this paper, retrofitment of an omnidirectional laser cladding system with a 4-axis CNC machine has been presented. This retrofitment is a challenging task as laser cladding system consists of several subsystems such as optical cladding head, laser power source, wire feeder, and external cooling unit. These subsystems need to be mechanically as well as electrically integrated with the CNC machine and its controller. Mechanical integration was achieved by mounting the cladding head on a retractable fixture, and electrical integration was achieved by providing extra relays in the CNC controller. The preliminary experiments were conducted to demonstrate the retrofitment and capability of the omnidirectional cladding.