High power lasers have become an industry standard for electric drive manufacturing as has the common design of such motors, called ‘hairpin motors’. The term refers to the structure of the windings and has been adapted by all relevant automotive OEM and suppliers. TRUMPF is by far technology leader in this specific manufacturing area and a vital part to all new developments.

Highly integrated lasersystems are utilized, including high power cw lasers with beam shaping and high beam qualities, scanning optics and camera based as well as OCT sensors for weld joint and seam tracking.

In this work we are presenting the latest advancements meant for moving away from static processing strategies and parameter sets towards adaptive and automated processing taking into account the challenges specifically evolving from parts clamping and tolerances. By adjusting the processing strategy based on acquired measurement data the welding results were successfully stabilized under the presence misalignments. Typical misalignment types ‘gap between pins’, ‘lateral offsets’ and ‘height differences’ were simulated and welded in different variations. To prove the effectiveness of adaption, a comparison of static welding results to the ones of adapted welding has been carried out. The process of compiling the adapted strategies to level misalignments will be demonstrated. Evaluations have been carried out looking into joint strength, weld sections, porosity formation and weld seam shape and will be shown in this presentation. Finally, a generalizable systematic on adapted processing strategies will be derived based on results of further, different wire types.