Fibre laser

[Engman]

Fibre laser has pretty much ended the life of the old CO2 lasers. Not only is it much quicker, but the amount of gas used is far less and it can cut reflective materials which CO2 can't. The other beauty of fibre is that all the mirror arrangements you find in CO2 lasers have gone as the fibre takes the laser power directly to the cutting head. 
Previously on CO2, the mirrors would become misaligned making it necessary to call out an engineer to put it right plus the pathways too the mirrors would need to be purged with nitrogen.

[CNCer]

The other factor which is new is the cost of new laser machines made in China and other low cost economies. A new machine can be bought for about the same cost as a second hand refurbished machine, that is to say about half the price of the leading makes. There is not a huge amount of data available about reliability and servicing for  these machines at the moment, but the cost difference for similar performance must be very tempting.

[admin]

The next step for many laser shops is the introduction of automated quoting and workshop management with a manufacturing execution system (MES). The short lead times and the wide variety of parts being cut, makes the administration, nesting, programming and shop floor management the slowest and most time consuming part of the process.

Laser cutting is becoming a commodity process, so it can be assumed that it will work smoothly as long as the machine is reliable and is maintained properly and has automated load/unload. Responding to customer enquiries, delivering a realistic and accurate quotation, fitting the job into production, ensuring quality, ordering and handling material, and delivering parts on time is the challenge, which puts one laser shop above another.

MES and CRM systems can do this when integrated with the programming system, which will give accurate cutting times and nests to estimate material usage and, with real time shop floor loading feedback, fit the new jobs into the production schedule. Quite a lot of shops work on a lead time of 3-4 days without any long term order book, so quoting and getting orders for a high proportion of the business quoted for is important as this cuts down on wasted administrative effort. On the other hand these systems will also make sure that each and every job is profitable by using accurate data and accessing historical information about similar jobs, so that mistakes are not repeated.

Another development is the use of online ordering interfaces so that cutomers can put in all the information about their job themselves online and recieve an instant quote, with human intervention only called for  jobs which don't fit the limitations of the online quoting system. This is one of the elements of Industry 4.0 which automates communication and processes as much as possible calling on a person to deal with the exceptional cases.

[Engman]

One of the problems with high speed laser cutting is that parts and scrap can tip up, rotate or hop on top of the sheet material. The laser head can then potentially collide with these rogue pieces of material, stopping the cutting process or possibly damaging the cutting head with an expensive repair bill.

Lantek in its latest version of the software anticipates these problems as the sheet is being programmed eliminating about 80% of unplanned stoppages. The intelligent collision avoidance routes the cutter path around potential problems, adds micro joints and has destruct paths to completely destroy the scrap in an aperture. Read it here

[shiguankge]

Laser cutting machines are the newest development in laser cutting. It reduces consumption, maintenance and increases speed and quality.