Material |
Material properties/ Laser wattage |
All information in the following table are compiled from
published results at other web sites. We take no credit or responsibility
for it. |
| Polyester sheet |
0.005"- thick material/ 20 Watt |
The material was cut to the desired shape using
21W at 15 inches per second (15 ips) - no assist gas was used. |
| Hoover bags |
100 W |
This application required the round hole in the
base
of a bag to be kiss-cut in such a way that other layers are
not
penetrated. The laser is ideal for this, and using a 100W
laser, the holes were cut at 70"/s.
|
| Speaker Membrane |
25 W |
These membranes required wires of variable size to
be
run through. A fixed size hole is limiting, and does not
rigidly
supporting the cable. Therefore, putting three slits radiating
outward from a point 125° to each other allows the wire
to
pass
through and be supported. The cutting was achieved with a
marking
head for ease of integration, with 25W at 2"/s. |
| Styrofoam panels |
50 W |
The request was to cut multiple layers of
Styrofoam,
each 3" thick. Only 50W was required at 20ipm to cut two
layers. The
material cut so easily that the shape of the beam was
perfectly
mirrored in the through-thickness cut geometry. Therefore a
2-3m
focal length lens is needed to properly cut the samples with a
reasonable cut width. |
| Velvet cloth |
25 W |
The flexibility of this cloth is ideal for laser
cutting. The cloth cuts with no discoloration or charring at
200ipm
using a 25W laser. |
| Acrylic |
¼" thick acrylic |
The cutting occurs as a result of material
vaporization, and, with 100% laser absorption, even a 25 watt
laser
can cut 1" thick acrylic! Simply cutting acrylic is
straightforward
enough: just select the laser power for speed required. When
the
thickness increases, however, and a polished square edge is
required, the set-up becomes more critical. The gas assist is
key to
achieving a polished edge. Air should be delivered to the
material
at a pressure that just enables the vaporized acrylic to be
ejected
through the cut, while not cooling the edge so much that
frosting
occurs. As a rough guide, a pressure of approximately 1-4 psi
should
be used, although this is totally related to the exit nozzle
diameter and the stand-off distance from the nozzle to the
material.
Generally a nozzle diameter of around 1/8", positioned about
the
same distance above the acrylic, is recommended. This offers
the
user good tolerance on the gas pressure setting. When cutting
material under 1/8" thick, the gas pressure will have to be
systematically changed to the correct level. The edge should
be
consistent through the depth of the cut. With thicker
material,
finding the correct gas pressure is a little easier - initiate
the
cut with no gas pressure, and then increase the pressure until
the
topside flaming disappears. It must be noted that a perfect
flame
polished edge is not possible. The edge will have very slight
vertical striations due to the periodic ejection of the vapor.
Although decreasing the cut speed can eliminate these
striations,
micro cracking then occurs on the cut face. For material over
1/3"
thick, defocusing into the material will help achieve the best
edge
square ness. As a note: because acrylic acts as a wave guide
to CO2
radiation, a 2.5" lens can be used on 1" thick acrylic with
reasonable results. This gives any cutting system a great
range on
thickness for a single set-up if a perfect cut is not
necessary.
Otherwise, for thicker material a 5" lens is generally
recommended. Verbatim Synrad |
| Sandpaper |
0.02" paper
100 W |
Profile cutting of sandpaper is easily done with a
CO2
laser, with little charring and no discoloration of the
surface.
0.02" paper was cut with 100W at 1300ipm, using a nitrogen
assist
gas. |
| Alumina |
90 W |
For a medical application, 0.0015-0.0025" diameter
holes were required in 0.03" alumna plate. As the beam cannot
be
focused to such at spot with the necessary depth of focus, the
hole
diameter was accomplished by just breaking through the plate.
The
key factor in this application was the clear hole aperture,
and not
the larger top surface hole created by the flow through the
plate.
Using a burst of 19 pulses, the average break-through hole
diameter
size was 0.0022", achieved in 9.5ms, with only 90 watts of
power.
|
| Wood veneer |
0.007" thick
50 W |
0.007" thick veneer was cut using 50W, to achieve
speeds of 340ft/min. No discoloration occurred, with low
pressure
nitrogen assist. This material can be either cut alone or
trimmed on
a part. Also, 0.02" thick maple veneer was cut with only 25W
at
250ipm. There was no surface discoloration, with slight
charring of
the cut edge. |
| Foam boards |
1" thick foam
125 W |
Cutting foam boards for tool sets with a 125
watt sealed CO2 laser. The cut width of around 1/16" is an
ideal
placement tolerance for the tools - they can be firmly held in
place, but remain easily accessible to the user. The material
shows
no discoloration or charring on the surface or the edge of the
cut.
Although the final application was completed with a 125
watt
laser at a speed of 65 inches per minute, through-cutting
could be
achieved with as little as 25 watts of laser power. The
flexibility
of the laser allows for different pattern cutouts for various
foam
depths. |
| Cellphone key pads |
25 W |
Cut conditions were 23W, 1.8"/s, 200mm lens The
as-received cell-phone keypad required the individual keys to
be
de-gated. The cuts were clean, with no significant burring
or
discoloration to the material. |
| Adhesive backed plastic |
125 W |
High speed high resolution cuts with 125W up to
0.07"
thick - only very slight melt back on plastic, no
discoloration or
charring. |
| Packaging PET |
0.009"
50 W |
Great application. No discoloration or charring,
at
speeds of 1000ipm with 50W. Use 4" lens as packaging was
geometrically distorted. |
| Shoe inserts |
100 W |
Foam backed felt, excellent cut quality, 150ipm
with
100W. |