LASER MARKING
survives intact. It’s a very aggressive test because the acid is basically eating away at the metal at some levels. We’ve proven that we can keep the mark on and now we’re imple- menting the technique at a couple of customer sites. It’s a recent development.”
Fiber Laser Advantages
The industry-wide acceptance of the fi ber laser goes beyond its having a lower price point. It has numerous ad- vantages over earlier systems such as CO2
and YAG (yttrium
aluminum garnet) sourced lasers because a lot of complexi- ties have been removed. YAG lasers, for example, used to be driven with a fl ash lamp in order to get the high-intensity light needed to get the energy propagated through the YAG crystal. Flash lamps were water-cooled, required a lot of service, and were very expensive, explained Epilog’s Henry. Enter fi ber.
“Fiber lasers were born out of fi ber optics use in the communications industry. Some very smart scientists and
CNC Swiss Training
engineers discovered that they could dope these opti- cal cables with different rare elements and get different wavelengths of light to propagate through and off of them. Instead of using fl ash lamp light, they use diode light,” Henry said. “The fi ber lasers are air-cooled—you don’t need a watercooling device; they’re very compact, so they’re very easy to integrate into our systems; and they’re incredibly robust. They just work.”
The Schmidt Alpha Laser Enclosure.
Develop machinists faster and to higher levels of competency with this proven online training system. Choose from Citizen, Star or Tsugami lathes along with any of the 5 brands of automatic bar loaders to focus the course to meet your needs. They will interact with realistic simulations of the selected brand of lathe and loader to speed learning and reduce errors. The self-paced material enables rapid development with full learner accountability. Case studies show faster setups, better quality, less tool and machine damage. Illustrated manuals are included to provide long-term reference documents for each trainee. Easy to implement within normal daily operations. A built-in learning management system provides documentation to meet quality audit requirements.
MasterTask Training Systems Call 800-624-6968
See “Mastering CNC Swiss” samples at
www.mastertask.com
66
AdvancedManufacturing.org | June 2015
IPG’s Hoult added, “To say that fi ber lasers have turned the industry upside down—that wouldn’t be overstating it. IPG introduced the fi rst nanosecond-pulsed low-power laser for marking. And I think now everybody who manu- factures laser marking systems has a fi ber laser version in their inventory. “The main reason people like the fi ber laser—and I’ve
heard this time and again—is we ship them out to the customer, they plug them in, clamp up the optic, push the button, and it works,” Hoult continued. Fiber lasers are also simpler overall. “With fi ber laser, there’s no free-space optics anywhere in the device—no fl ash lamp. Your energy source, a diode laser, is fi ber-coupled. Instead of a bunch of optic compo- nents arranged and tweaked, you simply have to splice fi bers
Photo courtesy Schmidt Marking Systems
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140 |
Page 141 |
Page 142 |
Page 143 |
Page 144 |
Page 145 |
Page 146 |
Page 147 |
Page 148 |
Page 149 |
Page 150 |
Page 151 |
Page 152 |
Page 153 |
Page 154 |
Page 155 |
Page 156 |
Page 157 |
Page 158 |
Page 159 |
Page 160 |
Page 161 |
Page 162 |
Page 163 |
Page 164 |
Page 165 |
Page 166 |
Page 167 |
Page 168 |
Page 169 |
Page 170 |
Page 171 |
Page 172 |
Page 173 |
Page 174 |
Page 175 |
Page 176 |
Page 177 |
Page 178 |
Page 179 |
Page 180 |
Page 181 |
Page 182 |
Page 183 |
Page 184 |
Page 185 |
Page 186 |
Page 187 |
Page 188 |
Page 189 |
Page 190 |
Page 191 |
Page 192 |
Page 193 |
Page 194 |
Page 195 |
Page 196 |
Page 197 |
Page 198 |
Page 199 |
Page 200 |
Page 201 |
Page 202 |
Page 203 |
Page 204 |
Page 205 |
Page 206 |
Page 207 |
Page 208 |
Page 209 |
Page 210 |
Page 211 |
Page 212 |
Page 213 |
Page 214 |
Page 215 |
Page 216 |
Page 217 |
Page 218 |
Page 219 |
Page 220 |
Page 221 |
Page 222 |
Page 223 |
Page 224