laser cutting basics

[BeeleJuice]

yall im looking for the basics of laser cutting. If my boss gets a high-end machine I would like to have already had an introduction to it. im looking for all the safety basics, all the pet peeves you guys have when working with laser equipment. not necessarily the controls because I will learn them later. I really haven’t read much on them. anyone know where I should start? Any good books?

[bennett71]

Just make sure your boss gets a good training package with the set up & you will be fine. A good tech doing the set up will get all your cutting parameters set for a wide range of materials before he leaves your shop. It is a little difficult trying to explain what to look out for as all lasers are different. If you get a laser from a decent manufactuer, you should get a good manual also that has cutting conditions for all types of material. Use these as a baseline & tweak from there. The most common adjustments you will have to make are lens focus, feed rate, power level, gas pressure & type of nozzle. These adjustments will be minimal also. For example, you will find that settings that work for regular 1/4" carbon steel might not work for 1/4" 4130 but the adjustment might only be only 100 watts of power or a slightly smaller or bigger nozzle etc. You will also find that settings that worked when the optics were clean & new will not work as they get hazed & degraded over a period of time. What happens when the optics get dirty especially the pr (partial reflector) or output coupler is that the amperage in the resonator has to rise in order to "push" the beam through the dirty pr. When this happens, the beam will get "fat" & your edge quality degrades slowly over time. You will find yourself focusing the lens deeper & deeper into the material to get a good cut edge. Soon the resonator will "clamp" or reach a stage where it is giving all the amperage it can to get the beam through the pr. Cut quality is now poor & your feed rates go down also. This is when you know it is time for resonator & delivery optic maintenance. These problems show up first in thicker materials. Make sure your boss has a good chunk of change available when this happens as you will need to get a qualified tech to do it @ least the first couple of times until you can do it on your own. Hope this helps, Tom

[sc6chuck9]

Please help, am I in a dream world as I am want to build a CNC cutting table with a laser for the cutter.I just don't know a damn thing about lasers except iot leaves a damn nice cut. Will this be to expencive or just over my head as a machinist and not some kind of engineer?I do understand there has to be some kind of draw back cause if there wasn't everyone would have one, thanks for any help guys,,,,chuck

[Konstantin]

Originally Posted by sc6chuck9 Please help, am I in a dream world as I am want to build a CNC cutting table with a laser for the cutter.I just don't know a damn thing about lasers except iot leaves a damn nice cut. Will this be to expencive or just over my head as a machinist and not some kind of engineer?I do understand there has to be some kind of draw back cause if there wasn't everyone would have one, thanks for any help guys,,,,chuck

I apologize in advance for this hijacking.
Same here, toying with the idea for a future project. In my understanding its as simple as mounting a CO2 100W beam instead of the spindle.

Thank you.
Konstantin.