I’ve seen those too and really wish I could try one. Maybe I will get to someday.
The machines I ran were cnc, most of them cut flat material but I did work at a place that had tube lasers, which could cut things like pipe and square tube and other structural sections like I-beam or angle.
To cut carbon steel, the machine heats up a small point about .3mm across to a yellow-hot glow before blowing oxygen at it, which burns all the way through the material. If you are cutting something like aluminum or stainless steel generally you use higher power and blow high-pressure nitrogen at the hot spot, which just forces the material out of the cut. The focal point for carbon steel is right on the surface of the plate, and for aluminum/stainless the focal point is 2/3 of the way through the material.
A 4kw CO2 laser can cut through carbon steel up to 19mm thick, and stainless/aluminum up to 13mm thick.
I used to repair/operate/program laser welders and cutters too. We mostly worked with titanium and either fiber or nd-yag lasers. Our cutter was 350w but 200psi of argon. My preferred cnc controllers were fanuc but they were so expensive(main controller not including servos or motors or anything else was 35k). Our cheaper machines were like 40k total but didn’t have nearly the accuracy or control.
Interesting fact with fanuc is there controllers are full backwards compatible. And I mean fully. You can buy the most recent top end model and pull out some program on bubble tape and it will work. You got a program on punch cards? No problem. Also their service is top notch. You call them, a technician will show up in a day or two max with a box of every replacement board possible. They will replace the burned board then and there (no ordering and shipping) and bill you after it’s fixed. Yes, it’s expensive(most boards are several hundred dollars but the fee for the technician which is a few thousand) but if you make a tens of thousands in revenue per day it’s worth the cost.
4kW CO2, Jesus xD. I don’t know if that is a lot, but sure sounds like it ^^
I’m happy I even got to work with some CO2 lasers around the 100W mark at a rapid prototyping workshop for a few years. I loved working with those, even if it was just on wood and acrylic (and they constantly needed recalibration and tuning).
Now I just sit at a computer all the time… I honestly miss that even just slightly more hands-on work ^^
4kw is sort of a standard power output, although one place I worked at had a 7kw laser with a huge table, I think 20 feet by 40 feet.
That said, 4,000 watts of laser beam is not a plaything. I got burns from reflections off aluminum sheet, but my favorite was the guy trying to navigate a forklift arond the worst laid out shop I ever saw. He hit the resonator cabinet and knocked the first mirror and waveguide off while the laser was running, and a spot got burned in the side of a panel truck.
I’ve seen those too and really wish I could try one. Maybe I will get to someday.
The machines I ran were cnc, most of them cut flat material but I did work at a place that had tube lasers, which could cut things like pipe and square tube and other structural sections like I-beam or angle.
To cut carbon steel, the machine heats up a small point about .3mm across to a yellow-hot glow before blowing oxygen at it, which burns all the way through the material. If you are cutting something like aluminum or stainless steel generally you use higher power and blow high-pressure nitrogen at the hot spot, which just forces the material out of the cut. The focal point for carbon steel is right on the surface of the plate, and for aluminum/stainless the focal point is 2/3 of the way through the material.
A 4kw CO2 laser can cut through carbon steel up to 19mm thick, and stainless/aluminum up to 13mm thick.
I used to repair/operate/program laser welders and cutters too. We mostly worked with titanium and either fiber or nd-yag lasers. Our cutter was 350w but 200psi of argon. My preferred cnc controllers were fanuc but they were so expensive(main controller not including servos or motors or anything else was 35k). Our cheaper machines were like 40k total but didn’t have nearly the accuracy or control.
Interesting fact with fanuc is there controllers are full backwards compatible. And I mean fully. You can buy the most recent top end model and pull out some program on bubble tape and it will work. You got a program on punch cards? No problem. Also their service is top notch. You call them, a technician will show up in a day or two max with a box of every replacement board possible. They will replace the burned board then and there (no ordering and shipping) and bill you after it’s fixed. Yes, it’s expensive(most boards are several hundred dollars but the fee for the technician which is a few thousand) but if you make a tens of thousands in revenue per day it’s worth the cost.
4kW CO2, Jesus xD. I don’t know if that is a lot, but sure sounds like it ^^
I’m happy I even got to work with some CO2 lasers around the 100W mark at a rapid prototyping workshop for a few years. I loved working with those, even if it was just on wood and acrylic (and they constantly needed recalibration and tuning).
Now I just sit at a computer all the time… I honestly miss that even just slightly more hands-on work ^^
4kw is sort of a standard power output, although one place I worked at had a 7kw laser with a huge table, I think 20 feet by 40 feet.
That said, 4,000 watts of laser beam is not a plaything. I got burns from reflections off aluminum sheet, but my favorite was the guy trying to navigate a forklift arond the worst laid out shop I ever saw. He hit the resonator cabinet and knocked the first mirror and waveguide off while the laser was running, and a spot got burned in the side of a panel truck.