Listen to an engineer in the cutting field say:
1) Now the market mainstream fiber laser, carbon dioxide laser slowly phased out, energy consumption is too high, there is still a market in the field of non-metal.
2) Now the price of optical fiber equipment has dropped sharply in the middle and low power segment since the laser was made in China.
3) In addition to laser other cutting methods, plasma and wire cutting market demand is relatively large, but the wire cutting for the mold industry is more, plasma in thick plate or precision requirements are not high demand is more, water knife cutting is now not common in the metal industry, in the field of non-metal there are many.
4) In the future development, it is absolutely the world of laser cutting in metal sheet, including non-metallic cutting will also be occupied by laser cutting a large part of the market.
Next we will analyze these cutting techniques.
Laser cutting
Optical cutting is the use of focused high power density laser beam irradiate the workpiece, so that the irradiated material quickly melt, vaporize, ablative or reach the ignition point, at the same time with the beam of high-speed air blowing molten material, so as to achieve the workpiece cutting. Now CO2 pulse laser is generally used, laser cutting is one of the thermal cutting methods.
Water cutting
Water cutting, also known as water knife, is a high pressure water jet cutting technology, is a use of high pressure water cutting machine. Under the control of the computer can be arbitrarily carved workpiece, and by the material texture of small impact. Water cutting is divided into two ways: no sand cutting and sand cutting.
Plasma cutting
Plasma arc cutting is a kind of machining method which uses the heat of high temperature plasma arc to melt (and evaporate) the metal at the cut of workpiece, and uses the momentum of high speed plasma to remove the molten metal to form the cut.
Line cutting, laser cutting, plasma cutting difference and contrast! 2023-05-15 09:41:07
With the development of science and technology, more and more cutting methods, such as: laser cutting, water cutting, plasma cutting, wire cutting...... What's the difference?
Listen to an engineer in the cutting field say:
1) Now the market mainstream fiber laser, carbon dioxide laser slowly phased out, energy consumption is too high, there is still a market in the field of non-metal.
2) Now the price of optical fiber equipment has dropped sharply in the middle and low power segment since the laser was made in China.
3) In addition to laser other cutting methods, plasma and wire cutting market demand is relatively large, but the wire cutting for the mold industry is more, plasma in thick plate or precision requirements are not high demand is more, water knife cutting is now not common in the metal industry, in the field of non-metal there are many.
4) In the future development, it is absolutely the world of laser cutting in metal sheet, including non-metallic cutting will also be occupied by laser cutting a large part of the market.
Next we will analyze these cutting techniques.
Laser cutting
Optical cutting is the use of focused high power density laser beam irradiate the workpiece, so that the irradiated material quickly melt, vaporize, ablative or reach the ignition point, at the same time with the beam of high-speed air blowing molten material, so as to achieve the workpiece cutting. Now CO2 pulse laser is generally used, laser cutting is one of the thermal cutting methods.
Wechat photo _20230515092952.png
Water cutting
Water cutting, also known as water knife, is a high pressure water jet cutting technology, is a use of high pressure water cutting machine. Under the control of the computer can be arbitrarily carved workpiece, and by the material texture of small impact. Water cutting is divided into two ways: no sand cutting and sand cutting.
Plasma cutting
Plasma arc cutting is a kind of machining method which uses the heat of high temperature plasma arc to melt (and evaporate) the metal at the cut of workpiece, and uses the momentum of high speed plasma to remove the molten metal to form the cut.
Wechat photo _20230515093118.png
Wire-cut machining
Wire Electrical Discharge Machining (Wire cut Electrical Discharge Machining (WEDM)), belongs to the category of electrical machining, wire cut electrical discharge machining (WEDM), Sometimes also known as line cutting. Wire cutting can be divided into fast wire cutting, medium wire cutting, slow wire cutting. The speed of wire cutting is 6 ~ 12 m/s, and the precision of cutting is poor because the wire is moving at high speed. Medium wire discharge wire cutting is a new technology developed in recent years, which realizes frequency conversion multiple cutting function on the basis of fast wire cutting. The wire speed of slow wire EDM wireline cutting is 0.2m/s, and the electrode wire makes low speed unidirectional motion, with high cutting accuracy.
Comparison of application scope
Laser cutting machine has a wide range of applications, whether metal, non-metal, can be cut, cutting non-metal, such as cloth, leather can be used with CO2 laser cutting machine, cutting metal can be used with fiber laser cutting machine. The sheet deformation is small.
Water cutting belongs to cold cutting, no thermal deformation, good cutting surface quality, no need for secondary processing, if needed, it is easy to carry out secondary processing. Water cutting can be any material drilling, cutting, cutting speed, flexible processing size.
Plasma cutting machine can be used for stainless steel, aluminum, copper, cast iron, carbon steel and other metal material cutting, plasma cutting has obvious thermal effect, low precision, cutting surface is not easy to carry out secondary processing.
Wire cutting can only cut conductive material, cutting process needs to have cutting coolant, so to paper, leather and other non-conductive, afraid of water, afraid of cutting coolant pollution of the material can not be cut.
Cut thickness comparison
Laser cut carbon steel in the industrial application is generally less than 20mm. The cutting capacity is generally below 40mm. Stainless steel industrial applications are generally below 16mm, cutting capacity is generally below 25mm. With the increase of workpiece thickness, the cutting speed decreases obviously.
Water cut thickness can be very thick, 0.8-100mm, or even thicker material.
Plasma cutting thickness 0-120mm, the best cutting quality range thickness of about 20mm plasma system cost-effective.
The thickness of wire cutting is generally 40 ~ 60mm, and the thickest can reach 600mm.
Cutting speed comparison
Using 1200W laser cutting 2mm thick low carbon steel plate, cutting speed up to 600cm/min; Cutting 5mm thick polypropylene resin board, cutting speed up to 1200cm/min. The cutting efficiency of electric discharge wire cutting is generally 20 ~ 60 square mm/min and up to 300 square mm/min. Obviously, laser cutting is fast and can be used for mass production.
Water cutting speed that is quite slow, not suitable for mass production.
The cutting speed of plasma cutting is slow and the relative accuracy is low. It is more suitable for cutting thick plate, but the end face has slope.
For metal processing, wire cutting has higher accuracy, but the speed is very slow, sometimes need to use other methods in addition to perforation, threading can be cut, and the cutting size is greatly limited.
Cutting precision comparison
The laser cutting incision is narrow, both sides of the slit are parallel and perpendicular to the surface, and the dimensional accuracy of the cutting parts can be up to ±0.2mm.
Plasma can reach within 1mm.
Water cutting will not produce thermal deformation, the accuracy is ±0.1mm, if the use of dynamic water cutting machine can improve the cutting accuracy, cutting accuracy can be up to ±0.02mm, eliminate the cutting slope.
Linear cutting machining accuracy is generally ±0.01 ~ ±0.02mm, up to ±0.004mm.
Slit width contrast
Laser cutting is more precise than plasma cutting, and the slit is small, about 0.5mm.
Plasma cutting slit is larger than laser cutting, about 1-2mm.
The slit of water cutting is about 10% larger than the diameter of the tool tube, generally 0.8-1.2mm. As the diameter of the sanding pipe expands, the incision becomes larger.
The slit width of linear cutting is the smallest, generally about 0.1-0.2mm.
Cut surface quality comparison
Laser cutting surface roughness is not as good as water cutting, the thicker the material is more obvious.
Water cutting does not change the texture of the material around the cut seam (laser is thermal cutting and will change the texture around the cut area).
Comparison of production input costs
1) Laser cutting machine models of different uses have different prices, cheap such as carbon dioxide laser cutting machine is only two or three million, expensive such as 1000W fiber laser cutting machine is now more than one million. Laser cutting has no consumables, but the cost of equipment investment is the highest in all cutting methods, and not a little higher, the use of maintenance costs are also quite high.
2) Plasma cutting machine is much cheaper than laser cutting machine. According to the power and brand of plasma cutting machine, the price is different, and the use cost is high. Basically, as long as the conductive material can be cut.
3) The cost of water cutting equipment is second only to laser cutting, high energy consumption, the use of high maintenance costs, cutting speed is not fast plasma, because all the abrasives are disposable, used once and discharged into nature, so the environmental pollution is also more serious.
4) Wire cutting is generally about tens of thousands of pieces. But line cutting is consumable, molybdenum wire, cutting coolant and so on. There are two kinds of wire cutting commonly used, one is molybdenum wire (molybdenum is valuable), used for fast wire equipment, the advantage is that molybdenum wire can be reused many times; The other is to use copper wire (much cheaper than molybdenum, anyway), which is used in slow-walking wire equipment. The disadvantage is that the copper wire can only be used once. In addition, the fast walking machine is far cheaper than the slow walking machine, the price of one slow walking wire is equal to 5 or 6 fast walking wire.