XT laser – laser cutting machine cutting sheet metal

We can easily touch sheet metal products in our daily life. Traditional sheet metal cutting equipment has a considerable market share in the market. In addition to the reason of their materials, the main reason is that they are cheap. Although they have obvious disadvantages compared with modern technologies such as laser cutting, they also have their own unique advantages. Relatively speaking, cutting sheet metal with laser cutting machine is the best solution at present.

The plate has the characteristics of light weight, high strength, conductivity (can be used for electromagnetic shielding), low cost, and good batch production performance. It is widely used in electronics, communications, automobile industry, medical devices and other fields. For example, sheet metal is an essential part of computer case, mobile phone, MP3 player, etc.

CNC plate shearing machine

Because the CNC plate cutter is mainly used for linear cutting, although it can cut 4 meters long plates, it can only be used for the processing of plates that only need linear cutting. It is generally used in industries that only need linear cutting, such as cutting after plate flattening.

Punch

The punch has greater flexibility in curve processing. A punch can have one or more sets of square, round or other special punches, which can process some specific sheet metal parts at one time. The most common is the chassis. In the cabinet industry, the processing technology they require is mainly the cutting of straight lines, square holes and round holes, and the pattern is relatively simple and fixed. Its advantage is to quickly process simple graphics and thin plates. The disadvantage is that the ability of punching thick steel plate is limited. Even if it can be punched, the surface of the workpiece will collapse, and the mold will also be very expensive. The mold development cycle is long, the cost is high, and the flexibility is not high enough. In foreign countries, more modern laser cutting is generally used for cutting steel plates above 2mm, rather than punch. First of all, the surface quality is not high when punching thick steel plates. So the noise when stamping thick steel plate is too large, which is not conducive to the protection of ecological environment.

Flame cutting.

As the original traditional cutting method, flame cutting has low investment and low requirements for processing quality in the past. If the requirement is too high, it can be solved by adding a machining process. There is a large quantity in the market. Now it is mainly used to cut thick steel plates of more than 40 mm. Its disadvantages are that the thermal deformation is too large, the notch is too wide, the material is wasted, and the processing speed is too slow, which is only suitable for rough machining.

Plasma cutting.

Plasma cutting and fine plasma cutting are similar to flame cutting, but the heat affected zone is too large, but the accuracy is far higher than flame cutting, and the speed also has an order of magnitude leap, becoming the main force of plate processing. The upper limit of the actual cutting accuracy of the top CNC fine plasma cutting machine in China has reached the lower limit of laser cutting. The speed of cutting 22mm carbon steel plate has reached more than 2 meters per minute. The cutting end face is smooth and flat, and the slope is the best. It shall be controlled within 1.5 degrees. The disadvantage is that the thermal deformation is too large and the slope is large when cutting the steel sheet. It is powerless in the case of high precision and relatively expensive consumables.

High pressure water cutting.

High-pressure water cutting uses high-speed water jet mixed with emery to cut plates. There is almost no restriction on the material, and the cutting thickness can almost reach more than 100 mm. It is also applicable to ceramics, glass and other materials that are easy to burst during thermal cutting. Can be cut, copper, aluminum and other materials with strong laser reflection can be cut with water jet, but there are great obstacles to laser cutting. The disadvantages of water cutting are that the processing speed is too slow, too dirty, not environmentally friendly, and the consumables are also high.

Laser cutting.

Laser cutting is a technological revolution in sheet metal processing and a “machining center” in sheet metal processing. Laser cutting has high flexibility, high cutting speed, high production efficiency and short production cycle, which has won a wide market for customers. Laser cutting has no cutting force and does not deform during processing. No tool wear, good material adaptability. Both simple and complex parts can be cut by laser for precise rapid prototyping. The cutting seam is narrow, the cutting quality is good, the degree of automation is high, the operation is simple, the labor intensity is low, and there is no pollution. It can realize automatic blanking and layout, improve material utilization rate, low production cost and good economic benefits. This technology has a long effective life. At present, the super-structure 2 mm plates are mostly cut by laser. Many foreign experts agree that the next 30-40 years will be the golden age of laser processing technology development (it is the direction of sheet metal processing development).