SML-C72 — High-Speed Laser Scriber
≤0.05% chippingBC · lossless · three-phase
The BC and high-throughput machine: a lossless groove-and-cleave cut, the lowest chipping on the range.
Open the SML-C72 pageChoose a scriber
Two Laser Scribers — Match One to Your Cell and Your Line
You arrive with a cell type and a throughput target, not a model number. Two scribers can separate your cells — one built for BC at volume, one sized for a single-phase corner of the floor. Read the side that matches your line and open that page.
Mechanical cleaving
The industry's older move
A cell is bent over an edge until it snaps. Simple, and still common — the bend is where a hidden crack can begin.
Laser scribing
What both machines here do
Each scores the cell with a laser first, so it parts along a drawn line instead of a bend. That is the family; the choice is between its two members.
Neither machine snaps the cell mechanically. The SML-C72 cuts lossless by thermal cleave; the SML-C20 cuts micro-loss and cleaves automatically — two laser processes, not a good one and a lesser one.
One scribing station · two laser machines
Locate yourself
Answer Three Questions, and the Scriber Picks Itself
You do not need to read two spec sheets to choose. Three things separate these scribers — what cell you cut, whether your line can carry a microcrack, and whether your floor has three-phase power — and taking them in that order usually lands you on one machine.
In practice the power drop settles it for most buyers on its own. If your cell type or your split is still open, send the cell drawing marked with the cut you need, and we place you on the right scriber →
Side by side
The Two Scribers, Row by Row
Two scribers, one frame — and the row that decides between them isn't on your cell drawing at all. It's Supply: the SML-C72 wants a three-phase 380 V drop, the SML-C20 runs off a single 220 V outlet. So half of this choice is fixed by what your building already has, not by the cell you cut — read down your cell's column, then across the rows that differ, knowing the power row is the one you usually can't design around.
There is no row here where the two are identical — a row that never differs cannot help you choose, and those live on the single-machine pages instead.
| Dimension | SML-C72 | SML-C20 |
|---|---|---|
| Method | Laser grooving + thermal cleaving (lossless), no mechanical snap | Micro-loss scribing + automatic cleaving |
| Route / cell | BC (also TOPCon / PERC), 166×166–210×210 mm, 120–220 μm | Mono / PERC, excludes aluminium-back cells, 156×156–220×220 mm |
| Throughput | ≥4800 pcs/h BC · ≥6800 pcs/h TOPCon / PERC (dual lane) | ≥1600 whole cells/h (one cut on a 166 cell) |
| Breakage | ≤0.05% (A-grade) — lowest figure on the range | ≤0.2% |
| Laser | 60 W groove / 300–500 W cleave · 20000 h warranty | 30 W Q-switched, λ=1064 nm |
| Positioning accuracy | ≤±0.05 mm · ≤±0.04° | ≤±0.1 mm |
| Supply | 380 V / 50 Hz / 40 A · 15 kW per side | 220 V / 50 Hz / 3 kVA (single phase) |
| Footprint / weight | 4000×2700×2700 mm / 5000 kg | 1000×650×1500 mm / 400 kg — smallest on the range |
In practice only two rows do real work. Supply is the hard split — a three-phase drop versus a single 220 V outlet — and throughput sorts you into a tier. Method, breakage, laser and footprint tend to line up behind whichever machine those two have already named.
Both cut with a laser. The only question this page owes you is which one your line can afford to run.
Where the family sits
One Station, Two Machines
Before you weigh the differences, place what they share. Both scribers occupy the same single slot — scribing, the first cut of the whole module line — where whole cells become the separated cells everything downstream is built around.
Whichever you pick sits in that slot, takes whole cells on the in-feed and hands separated cells to stringing on the out-feed. So the choice between the two is never about where the machine sits or what job it does — it is about which cell it separates, how fast, and on what supply.
The dividing line
Lossless or Micro-Loss — What the Choice Actually Buys
Of every row in the table, one is the dividing line worth understanding before you choose: lossless against micro-loss. It is not that one cut is cleaner than the other — both are laser cuts. It is what a hidden defect costs you three stations later.
Start with what the two words mean for the silicon. The SML-C72 cuts lossless — it grooves and then thermally cleaves, so no material is taken out of the cell and no bending edge is ever made; the figure that follows is chipping held to ≤0.05% on A-grade cells, the lowest on the range. The SML-C20 cuts micro-loss — a narrow laser kerf removes a sliver of silicon along the line, the cell parts automatically along it, and breakage holds to ≤0.2%. Both are clean; they are clean to a different degree, at a different price, on a different class of line.
Now the decision, which turns on one question: what does a defect born at the cut cost you downstream? On a BC thin-cell line at volume, a lot — a microcrack seeded here stays invisible and surfaces as a hidden-crack reject at EL, after the line has already strung, laid up and bussed the cell. When every reject carries that much added work, a lossless cut that never seeds one is worth paying for, and that is the C72's case.
On a modest or pilot monocrystalline line the arithmetic changes: throughput is lower, the cell is not a fragile BC thin cell, and a micro-loss cut at ≤0.2% breakage sits well inside what the line can carry — so the compact, single-phase C20 is not a compromise, it is the right size.
Where it goes wrong
Force the entry route onto BC volume — thin BC cells into a micro-loss machine drawn for a modest mono line — and the chipping and microcracks it lets through ride straight into a line where every downstream station adds cost to the defect.
The mismatch is not a weak machine — it is what a defect costs on your line deciding which cut you can afford.
Changing the split later
Changing the Split Later Is a Tooling Change
Here's an asymmetry worth catching before you sign — the one buyers miss. A cell size can sit well inside a machine's stated range and still fall outside its standard tooling.
Size in range, tooling not in the box
The SML-C20 accepts cells from 156 to 220 mm, but its cleaving tooling ships to cover only 166–182 mm — so a size sitting comfortably inside the machine's range can still need a custom fixture to cut. The SML-C72 is the opposite: its standard two-way cleave already spans its whole 166–210 mm range out of the crate. Read a machine's size range and its tooling coverage as two separate numbers, not one, and match the size you actually run against the tooling line.
The cost of a wrong pick
What a Wrong Pick Actually Costs
Two mismatches account for almost every scriber chosen badly — both cheap to catch on paper and expensive to discover on the floor. Neither is a machine underperforming; each is a machine asked for a job it was never sized to do.
The entry machine under BC volume
Choose the C20 on price and footprint, then feed it thin BC cells at a high rate, and the trouble does not show at the machine — it shows three stations later as chipping and hidden-crack rejects at EL, on a line where every reject has already been strung, laid up and bussed. The C20 is drawn for a modest mono or PERC line; the fix is the higher-tier machine, after the crate has shipped.
The wrong supply on the layout
Plan the floor around a single 220 V outlet and order the three-phase C72 — or plan a three-phase drop and order the single-phase C20 — and the machine is right but the building is not. A 220 V single-phase machine and a 380 V three-phase machine are not interchangeable at the wall, so the gap surfaces as electrical rework at install: a drop to add, or a drop stranded and paid for.
Both mismatches are settled by the same two rows of the table — supply and throughput — read against your real building and your real contract before the order, not after.
Open a page
Open the Machine's Page
By now the table has narrowed it to one; these two cards are the doorway to each machine's full page. What each leads with is the number these scribers are really judged on — chipping rate — because on a separation step that is the figure that rides downstream: the C72 at ≤0.05%, the C20 at ≤0.2%.
SML-C20 — Entry Laser Scriber
≤0.2% breakageMono / PERC · micro-loss · 220 V single-phase
The compact micro-loss scriber for a modest mono or PERC line, on a single outlet and the smallest footprint made.
Open the SML-C20 pageNot a scriber?
Not a Scriber? Its Neighbors on the Line
Scribing is the first station in the stretch of line we build, which makes it the one machine here with a neighbor on only one side. Upstream is your cell factory — your scope, not ours — so there is nothing before it for us to point you to. Downstream is where the line continues, starting with the station right after it.
Tabber-stringing — the station right after
The separated cells a scriber hands off feed a stringer, which solders them into strings; those three machines have their own selection page.
See the tabber-stringersRobotic layup — two stations on
Strings then hand to a layup machine that lays them into a module; the docking interface lives on the SML-A6 page.
See the SML-A6 layupShared site baseline
The Site Baseline They Both Share
The two scribers differ most in supply and footprint — those rows are on the table above — but they sit on the same basic site baseline, the same whichever one you land on.
| Shared requirement | Both scribers |
|---|---|
| Floor load | ≥600 kg/m² |
| Operating range | 5–40 °C, 5–70% relative humidity, no condensation |
Which acceptance you sign
Choosing the Scriber Picks Your Breakage Rate
The two scribers are not accepted on the same breakage figure — the rate your line is signed off against depends on which one you buy, and the gap is wide.
One choice sets the breakage figure
The SML-C72 cuts loss-free and is accepted at ≤0.05%, the lowest breakage on the line; the SML-C20 cuts with micro-loss and is signed off at ≤0.2%. Choosing the scriber decides which breakage rate the agreement holds your line to — the two never sit in one table on a single-machine page.
See how acceptance is runStill between the two?
Still Between the Two? Send the Drawing
If the three questions leave you between the two machines, the cell drawing decides it faster than any more reading. Tell us the cell and the cut you need, and a configuration sized to your line comes back.
1
Send the cell drawing
Type, size, thickness and the split you need — the details that place you on the table.
2
Tell us the rate and the drop
The throughput the line must hold, and whether the floor has a three-phase or single-phase supply.
3
We name it and size it
One of the two, with a configuration proposal for your format, back within 24 hours.
Reply within 24 hoursGet pointed to one
Get Pointed to the Right One
One drawing in, one machine and one proposal back — the low-commitment way to turn a shortlist of two into a decision.
We point you to one of the two and size it within 24 hours · email.