LASER MACHINING
and aluminum. Speed and accuracy, especially when cutting thinner gage materials have been major talking points for the lower capital cost and maintenance-free fiber lasers. As a result, new fiber-laser machine entrants, especially from major suppliers of CO2
technology or companies that have
not been in the laser market recently, are crowding the field. Customized CO2
Machines, Splitting a Fiber Laser
“The challenge for companies today is to differentiate among the value propositions for CO2
, fiber laser, and even
plasma cutting technology,” said Doug Shuda, director of marketing, global cutting technologies, ESAB Welding & Cutting Products (Florence, SC). “Unfortunately, given the wide range of available options very few people can articulate the difference between CO2
and fiber laser, and fiber laser
and other technologies. And in the general population most people couldn’t tell you the difference between the 1 micron fiber laser beam and the 10 micron wave length of CO2
important because a 1 micron wavelength (which provides –very
different material processing capabilities) can deliver perma- nent damage to the eye, necessitating full safety enclosures. Most people, however, can tell you that fiber laser can give you better cut quality and faster cut speeds on thinner mate- rial than you would get with plasma and which is much more consistent in cutting small holes and acute angles.” ESAB offers both CO2
large-gantry laser cutting machines like its highly engineered Alpharex CO2
laser cutting systems that can be custom LASER CALIBRATION SYSTEMS
Patented LDDM (Laser Doppler), single aperture is compact, lightweight, easier to use, and more cost effective than traditional interferometer laser systems
Applications: CNC Machine Tools, large area Water and Laser cutting machines, 5-axis Gantry type machines, and CMMs
Optodyne, Inc.
1180 Mahalo Place, Rancho Dominguez, California 90220 USA Tel: (800) 766-3920 – (310) 635-7481
info@optodyne.com –
www.optodyne.com U. S. Innovation, Made in the USA
Trusted by the global machine tool industry for more than 25 years
Features: > ASME and ISO machine calibration > Innovative 3D laser-vector volumetric compensation > Automatic data collection and file generation > Dynamic contour and spindle error motion measurement
designed to the customer’s specific application. They are de- signed to deliver a very small heat-affected zone and are able to cut complex contours quickly. “Because we sell complete solutions direct, we are able to configure machine size, frame size, material handling, and adjust power and the process and resonators to the application,” said Shuda. “We are evolving the fiber laser side of our business and have developed a large format fiber laser. It features a new concept in a dual-head design. One of the heads cuts in the XY axes; the other head is a bevel cutting head. We’ve taken a 6-kW fiber laser power supply and bifurcated the beam into two delivery fiber cables. The large format gives us the ability to cut with 6 kW for thicker material or faster cutting, or bifurcate into two heads where you can run 3 kW in one head and 3 kW in the other to cut either an XY flat plate or cut bevel scenarios.” ESAB is also look- ing at small format fiber lasers. “There are a lot of them out there and people are becoming very creative in the way they design tables with full enclosures, fume extraction, and material handling, especially with linear drives and rails that previously were available only on high end lasers,” said Shuda.
Thick, Thin, Welding:
Quest for the Universal Fiber Laser “Our TruLaser 5030 fiber is a highly
productive, universal machine that is able to optimally process both thick and thin sheets while keeping the cost per part to a minimum,” said Brett Thompson, sales engineer, Trumpf Inc. (Farmington, CT). “Our BrightLine fiber,
58
AdvancedManufacturing.org | November 2015
and fiber lasers and is known for its
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