Professional Custom Cnc Sheet Metal Cutting Machine CE ISO Certification

 How to make a choice between fiber laser cutting machine and CO2 laser cutting machine 

1.  How does the material being processed influence the laser choice?

Where the cutting tasks involve wood, plastics, glass or textiles all the way to paper, the CO2 laser is needed with its far infra-red radiation, and the cutting tasks invole only metal, fiber laser cutting is the best choice.

2.  Material thickness in the cutting process also influence the laser choice.

Using nitrogen as an assist gas (fusion cuts) for fiber laser cutting on thin sheets of less than 3mm results in higher speeds, sometimes using a narrower focus. A fiber laser with 1um wavelength is the best choice, provided that the machine is able to achieve these higher cutting speeds. With thicker material, the expulsion of melt is impeded and a larger spot size is required, therefore in this case CO2 lasers reach higher processing speeds.

Hence choice of fiber or CO2 can depend on the thickness of the material to be processed.

For material thicknesses around 3 mm and above, the benefit of coupling 1um radiation lessens due to the angle of the cutting front(Fresnel absorption); therefore from a speed perspective the results are practically identical. This brings other parameters such as cost to the foreground. Additionally the cutting edge roughness increases which results in reduced quality.

When flame cutting with oxygen as cutting gas, there are no decisive advantages for either technology, because the cutting speed that can be obtained is essentially determined by the conbustion process of the oxygen.

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