Types of Major Laser Cutting Methods and Laser Cutters
Laser cutting is a process which uses a computer-administered process. It cuts the material with a computing process which generates a beam. The interface integration cuts the material along with the directions. Any of the material which comes in between the route will vaporize, burned, melted, to produce high-quality surface finish material. These machines are efficient as they reduce the production cost and provides with the quality material.
Here are the major 5 types of Laser Cutting Machines available in the market:
Rotary Laser Cutting: It is mainly good to perform cutting activities of steel tubes and pipes. Drilling, sawing, milling, etc. were the major conventional ways to process pipes in the past. Nowadays, you can process the cutting of pipes using updated rotary laser cutting machine at substantially reduced production cost. It helps to process ellipse tube, round tube, rectangular tube, and D-type tube materials. Manufacturers extend Rotary machines to process high speed, accurate, and precise laser work. These machines usually have premium Mazak parts and Fanuc parts.
5 Axis Laser Cutting: It is helpful to those who want to perform three-dimensional profile cutting and cutting of two-dimensional metal sheets. It yields highly effective and inexpensive outputs as compared to the conventional means. It helps you reach areas which would be difficult to cut using other conventional methods.
Robotic Laser Cutting: It is a modern-day 3D laser cutting innovation. It extends outstanding flexibility and provides great power control. You can monitor this process and access it from anywhere. It involves high precision with a specialized cutting head which has advanced autofocus sensors. The cutting system manufacturers provide robotic laser cutting machines which give effective outputs with a multi-axis mechanical arm.
Small Format Laser Cutting: It is majorly useful for metals and nonmetals. It has adjustable z-axis to cut through thick materials with high accuracy. You can adjust the height to maintain the focal length for high-quality material. With fewer maintenance requirements when compared to the conventional methods, it produces perfectly finished outputs.
Large Format Laser Cutting: Large Format Laser Cutting Systems provides 2D large format profile laser cutter. They are mainly good to yield a high level of efficiency required for Automotive, Aerospace, Sheet Metal Fabrication, Ship Building, and other materials. They provide accurate and efficient results.
Types of Laser Cutters:
- The CO2 laser – For engraving, cutting and boring.
- Fiber lasers – It belongs to the solid-state group.
- Neodymium (Nd) laser and Neodymium yttrium-aluminum-garnet (Nd-YAG) laser – Best when required high energy and low repetition. Also used for boring. When it comes to style, Nd-YAG is best for boring and engraving with high power.
CO2 Lasers:
The CO2 laser is best for industrial cutting of various materials such as wood, glass, acrylic, leather, wax, plastics, wood, and other fabrics. It uses a carbon dioxide gas mixture stimulated by electricity. The most popular CO2 lasers are those which uses the radio frequency excited tube.
CO2 lasers are gas-based made with parts like Mazak parts and Fanuc parts. Nd and Nd-YAG lasers are crystal lasers. They are important for cutting materials, and ceramics since they are more powerful. Pumped by diodes, they contain expensive parts like Mazak parts or Fanuc parts which replace minimum 8000 to maximum 15000 hours of use.
Fiber lasers
They generate a laser beam with the so-called seed laser and amplify it is glass fibers. With a wavelength of 1.064 micrometers, fiber lasers can produce small focal diameter. As a result, its intensity is up to 100 times higher than that of CO2 lasers. They are suitable for metal marking by way of annealing, metal engraving, and high-contrast plastic markings.
MOPA laser is a special type of fiber laser. Its pulse durations are adjustable. That’s why it is one of the most flexible lasers suitable for many applications.
Nd-YAG
These crystal lasers belong to the solid-state lasers. Pumped with diodes they are crystal laser machines. The names of Nd and Nd-YAG laser is after doping element neodymium and the carrier crystal. Unlike fiber lasers, these include expensive pump diodes, which are wearing parts. The crystal ones also have a shorter service life than a fiber laser.