Method for the laser machining of coated sheets

With many coated sheets, in particular zinc-coated sheets as used in the automobile industry, the coating material has a much lower boiling point than the material of the sheet. On welding said sheets together the above leads to explosive evaporation of coating material which seriously affects the quality of the connection. In order to improve the quality of the connection it has already been disclosed that narrow gaps between the sheets can be produced by means of spacers, through which the coating material can escape. The spacers can be produced for example, by means of laser bombardment of the sheets. A disadvantage is the relatively long time necessary for machining, which causes large costs in particular for serial production. The aim of the invention is to reduce the time necessary for machining the sheets whilst at least maintaining, preferably improving the quality of the machining. Said aim is achieved, by means of a method, whereby the laser beam is deflected onto the surface by means of a scanner device. A scanner device is a particularly rapid and flexible beam-diverting device. The above permits a reduction in the machining time by a factor of 10 without reducing the quality of the machining.