After the M3 reaches your bench

Training, Parameter Support and Service Once the M3 Is Yours

A laser is a new habit as much as a new device. This page is about everything that happens after delivery: learning to run it, getting process help, and keeping the bench working.

Tell Us Your Application — Get M3 Guidance Talk to an M3 Specialist
Operator training · remote process guidance · parameters for unfamiliar alloys and joints · consumables and spare parts
A jeweler practising a joint on scrap stock at the M3 while a written parameter note sits open on the bench beside the unit
How support is organised

Four Support Tracks, Each With a Different Trigger

Support is not one inbox. Each track starts from a different situation at your bench, and each one asks something different of you.

When this happens What you send us What comes back
The unit has just arrived Your bench setup and the metals you repair most often A guided start: safe operation, aiming, first joints on scrap, and how to record what worked
A job behaves unexpectedly Photographs of the joint, the setup and the result you got A read on what the joint is telling you, plus an approach to try next
An alloy or joint you have not run before The metal, the piece, the joint geometry and any stones present A starting point to validate on scrap — never a finished recipe
A wear or consumable item needs replacing Your configuration and a photograph of the item in question Confirmation of the exact item before you order anything
The part nobody plans for

The Real Threshold Is Not the Machine — It Is Your Hand

Everything else on this page exists to serve one problem: a repairer who has never held a laser, and the stretch of time before the results stop surprising them.

Rows of scrap practice coupons in different precious metals laid out beside the M3 with handwritten settings next to each one
The learning record, built while learning — not afterwards.
One · Why this one

Owning the Laser Is Not the Same as Working It

Delivery solves the equipment problem and leaves the skill problem completely untouched. Aiming under magnification, deciding where to place the energy, reading whether a joint has actually taken — those live in the hand, not in a manual. Experienced solderers are often the ones who struggle earliest, because the reflexes that made them quick at the torch have to be re-aimed.

The honest framing: you are not buying a result. You are buying a tool you will steadily get better at.
Two · What it costs

What It Costs to Learn on Customers' Pieces

Skipping the practice stage does not save the time it appears to save. It moves the cost onto the bench, where it is far more expensive.

  • Live work used as practice. A thin shank learned on becomes a repair you now owe the customer twice.
  • Settings held in memory. What worked on that alloy is gone by the time the same alloy comes back.
  • One person holds everything. When that seat is empty, the shop restarts the whole curve from nothing.
  • Silent drift. Results change slowly and nobody can say which variable actually moved.
Three · How we do it

Practice Order, Written Settings, and a Way to Ask

We start you on scrap in the metals you genuinely repair, in a deliberate order: hold and aim, then a single tack, then a full joint, then that same joint on a piece with a finished surface. Each attempt is written down as it happens — the settings, the metal, the joint, and what it looked like afterwards.

The habit that matters: the record is built during practice, not reconstructed later from memory.
Four · How to check it

Can Another Person Repeat Your Result From Your Notes?

There is no score we can hand you, and we will not invent one. Use these checks instead — every one of them is answerable at your own bench, with your own paperwork.

  • Handover test. Give a colleague your notes. Do they reach the same joint without asking you anything?
  • Return-job test. The same alloy comes back later. Can you find what you used last time?
  • Scrap-first test. Does an unfamiliar metal still get a scrap trial before a customer's piece?
  • Explain-it test. Can you say why a joint failed, and not only that it did?
Five · Where the limit is

When to Stop Testing and Ask Us Instead

Trying one more setting is the right instinct, right up until it is not. Two operators will not arrive at the same result at the same point in their learning, and that is normal rather than a fault. Stop and bring us in when any of these is true:

  • Unidentified stones. Species, treatment, setting structure, distance from the working area and heat sensitivity change the answer.
  • A customer's item in an unfamiliar alloy. Experiment on scrap of that metal, not on the piece you owe back.
  • Results changed while nothing else did. That is a consumable or machine question; pushing parameters only hides it.
  • The same joint fails the same way three times. A repeating failure is information. Send it instead of trying again.

On a stone-set piece the assessment comes before the pulse, never after. And when the piece itself is the question rather than the setting, stop guessing at it and put it in our hands. Send a sample and see the result

Remote process guidance

How a Remote Process Question Actually Gets Answered

We will not publish response-time promises we cannot hold for every workshop and time zone. What we can describe honestly is the order things happen in, and what makes the answer useful.

Step one

You Send the Joint, Not the Adjective

"It looks wrong" cannot be worked with. A photograph at working distance, the metal, and what you already tried can be.

Step two

We Read the Result Before Suggesting Anything

The surface of a failed joint usually says which way the setting moved. We tell you what we are reading, so the reasoning transfers to you.

Step three

You Get an Approach to Try, on Scrap First

What comes back is a direction and a starting point to trial on scrap of the same metal — not an instruction to apply directly to the customer's piece.

Step four

You Report What the Trial Actually Did

The loop only closes if the outcome comes back to us. Half the value of remote support is the second message, not the first.

Step five

It Goes Into Your Record, Not Only Ours

Whatever settles the question gets written into your own log against that metal and joint, so the next occurrence is a lookup rather than another conversation.

Step six

Or We Tell You It Needs the Piece Itself

Some questions cannot be settled from photographs. When that is the case we say so and ask for a sample instead of trading messages.

Unfamiliar alloys and joints

Why We Will Not Hand You One Universal Parameter Set

A single sheet of settings that covers every metal would be the most popular thing on this website, and the most damaging.

No one setting is right for every metal. Alloy and its content, the section you are joining, the joint geometry, the surface condition, whether the item has been repaired before, and what sits close to the working area all move the answer. Publishing one number for all of it would put your customers' pieces at risk.

What you get instead is a starting point tied to what you described, meant to be run on scrap of the same metal before it goes anywhere near live work. For the precious metals the M3 is validated on, see gold, silver and platinum welding.

Send this with the question

What Makes a Parameter Question Answerable

  • The metal, as precisely as you know it. Including karat or alloy designation where you have it.
  • A photograph at working distance. The joint as you see it under magnification, not a catalogue angle.
  • Stones and their position. Whether any are set, what they are, and how close they sit to the work.
  • Repair history. Previously soldered, plated or reworked pieces do not behave like fresh stock.
  • What you already tried. The attempt that failed narrows the answer faster than the description does.
What you will not get: a promise that the first suggestion is the final one. It is a place to start on scrap.
A joint on a repair piece viewed through the binocular microscope of the M3 as it would be photographed for a parameter question
An operator noting settings from the integrated display of the M3 into a bench parameter log
Consumables and spare parts

Ordering the Right Wear Item Instead of Guessing at It

Most bench stoppages are not a broken machine. They are an ordinary wear item, ordered late or ordered wrong.

  • Confirm against your configuration first. The M3 ships in multiple power configurations; describe yours before you order rather than after.
  • Send the symptom, not only a part name. It often points somewhere other than the part you meant to replace.
  • Log what is fitted and when it changed. The same habit that carries your parameters carries this too.
  • Reorder before the last one is in use. A consumable held on the shelf costs you nothing while it waits.

We do not publish service or coverage terms on this page, because they belong to your order rather than to a web page. Ask for them in writing alongside your quote — how M3 quotes are structured.

A consumable item from the M3 being inspected on the bench next to a written maintenance note
A wear item on the shelf is cheaper than a bench standing still.

Unsure the Work Suits the M3? Settle It Before You Order

Training makes a capable operator out of a willing one. It cannot make a machine suitable for work it was never validated for — so test that part first.

Submit a Sample — Request an M3 Welding Test
If the answer is that your work belongs elsewhere, we will say so.
Questions about the stage after delivery

What Shops Ask About Training, Guidance and Spares

No, and we would rather say that plainly than sell you a fantasy. There is a genuine learning curve: aiming under magnification, choosing a starting point and reading the joint afterwards are built by repetition. Training shortens the curve and keeps the early mistakes on scrap instead of on customers' work — it does not remove the curve. Progress is also personal; two operators in the same shop will not be at the same place at the same moment.

Yes, and what decides how painful it is has already been decided by then. A shop with a written parameter record hands the new operator a starting point for every metal it repairs. A shop that kept everything in one person's head repeats the entire curve. Building the log during the first operator's practice is the cheapest insurance available to you, and it costs nothing but the discipline of writing while you work.

Treat it as an open question rather than a small variation on something familiar. Send us the metal as precisely as you know it, a photograph of the joint at working distance, whether stones are set and where, and any repair history on the piece. What comes back is a starting point to trial on scrap of that same metal. We will not give you one universal setting for every metal, because no such setting exists.

It is useful in proportion to what you send. A photograph of the actual joint, the metal, and what you already attempted usually settles a process question. Descriptions on their own rarely do. There is a real limit, too: some questions need the piece in hand, and when we reach that point we will ask for a sample rather than keep trading messages about it.

Tell us your configuration and what the symptom was, send a photograph of the item, and we confirm the exact part before you order it. That step exists because the M3 ships in multiple power configurations and an item ordered from a general description is the one that arrives wrong. Coverage terms belong to your order rather than to this page — ask for them in writing when you request a quote.

Then we escalate rather than repeat ourselves. The next step is usually the piece itself, or scrap in the same metal and joint, sent to us so the work is done on the material rather than described. One outcome is always on the table: that the job sits outside what the M3 is validated for. We would rather tell you that than watch you fight it at the bench. Start from the repair work the M3 is built around if you want to check the fit yourself.
Ask about your own bench

Tell Us What You Repair and Get M3 Guidance

Describe the work and the people who will run the machine. The answer that comes back is about your bench, not about the product in general.

Talk to an M3 Specialist

Prefer email? Write to [email protected] and describe who will be running the machine.

Worth including

  • How many people will use it. Training one operator and training a rota are different conversations.
  • The job that worries you. Usually a stone-set piece or an alloy nobody in the shop has run.
  • Whether you keep a bench record today. It tells us where your training should start.

Still deciding on the machine itself?

What the M3 actually is
Contact the team directly