Wide-web metal foil · Roll-to-roll
FoilPro™
FoilPro is the metal-foil configuration of the LasX wide-web platform. It shares the frame, the LaserSharp® modules and the LightGuide® control used across the packaging range, and changes what a metal web actually requires — tension control matched to thin foil, unwind and rewind with splice handling, and debris and fume extraction sized for metal processing. Laser sources are NIR and green, nanosecond through femtosecond, selected for the foil and its coating rather than fixed by the machine.
Film, laminate and paper webs on the same frame run on FocusPro™. Webs to 350 mm run on MicroLam™. Sheets, boards and plates rather than a web run on SheetPro™. Webs wider than 1,800 mm are quoted as custom equipment.
What it does on your line
The features this machine puts into the web, and what each one is worth on the finished pack. Specifications follow.
Electrode and current-collector cutting
Coated electrode foil and bare current-collector stock cut roll-to-roll, without the tool-wear drift that mechanical slitting develops over a run.
Foil perforation
A perforation pattern cut in the web at line speed, with no tooling to wear and no pattern change that means new tooling.
Selective ablation and de-coating
Active coating removed from the foil beneath it — tab areas, contact zones, patterned regions — with the metal left intact.
Antenna and conductor patterning
Metallized webs patterned by selective ablation, forming antennas and conductors on the carrier rather than etching them.
Specifications
| Web width | 600, 1,000, 1,400, or 1,800 mmWider than 1,800 mm is quoted as custom equipment. |
|---|---|
| Laser sources | NIR and green, nanosecond through femtosecondWavelength and pulse duration are chosen independently for the foil and its coating. Copper absorbs green several times better than NIR. |
| Laser modules | Configured per applicationModule count and type are set by the material, the feature set and the line speed, and established in the PhotonX trial. |
| Web handling | Tension control for thin metal, splice handling, debris and fume extractionThe difference between a foil line and a film line. Foil is unforgiving of tension error and metal processing produces debris that film does not. |
| Positional tolerance | Configured per applicationFeature size is set by the laser module, not the platform. |
| Configuration | Configure-to-order |
| Design life | 15+ years |
Configure-to-order
- Web width — 600, 1,000, 1,400, or 1,800 mm
- Laser source — NIR or green, nanosecond, picosecond, or femtosecond
- Module count and arrangement across the web
- Assist-gas shroud — nitrogen or argon, where an oxide-free edge is specified
- Unwind, rewind and splice handling package
- Debris and fume extraction package
- µVerify™ — in-line inspection that measures feature size and position and feeds closed-loop control of the laser parameters, plus Pulse beam confirmation. Which features are measured depends on the application.
Mechanical slitting and punching of metal foil works until the tooling starts to wear, and then it works differently every hour. Burr height climbs, the edge changes, and on coated electrode foil the coating starts to chip at the cut.
FoilPro replaces the tooling with a beam. The pattern is a file, so changing it costs nothing, and there is no wear curve to manage across a run.
What makes it a different machine from the film line next to it is not the laser. It is the web: foil is unforgiving of tension error, it arrives on rolls that have to be spliced, and cutting metal produces debris and fume that film does not. Those three things are what FoilPro is built around.
In production
See it run
Questions buyers ask
How is FoilPro different from FocusPro?
The frame, the LaserSharp® modules and the LightGuide® control are shared. What changes is everything a metal web touches — tension control matched to thin foil rather than film, unwind and rewind with splice handling, extraction sized for metal debris and fume, and NIR or green sources instead of CO₂. A converter running film should be looking at FocusPro™; a cell, electrode or antenna manufacturer running metal should be looking at FoilPro.
Which laser source does our foil need?
That is what the trial establishes. Copper absorbs green several times better than NIR, which changes the power required and the edge you get. Coated electrode foil is really two materials — a ductile metal and a brittle coating — and the parameter set that suits one fights the other, which is picosecond and femtosecond territory more often than datasheets suggest. LasX does not quote a source before running the material.
How do you control burr height and heat-affected zone?
By measuring them. Burr height, heat-affected zone, kerf width and edge oxidation are recorded per foil thickness and coating during the PhotonX trial and reported back — they are not published as machine specifications, because they belong to the material and the parameter set rather than to the frame. Where an oxide-free edge is specified, an assist-gas shroud running nitrogen or argon is a configure-to-order option.
Can the modules go into a line we already run?
Yes. LaserSharp® modules are supplied to OEMs and integrated into existing converting lines, with mechanical and electrical integration envelopes and control handshake documentation. What LasX needs to know is the web path, the available space, the line's encoder and registration signals, and the foil itself.