The Laser Cutting Advantage

Laser cutting greatly simplifies the design and manufacturing process. Any pattern drawn on a computer can be directly engraved on, or cut from many materials without tooling - quickly turning an idea into a manufactured part.

Laser cutting frees you to design complex parts that are difficult to make with conventional tools. The focused laser beam—as small as .004"—produces intricate detail and very sharp corners. The process is non-contact, allowing delicate materials to be cut without damage. There are also no cutting tools that can wear or break.

Flexible Manufacturing

Many manufacturing companies are increasingly interested in flexible manufacturing. Market pressures demand the ability to quickly make small quantities of parts or efficiently change between jobs. Computer controlled tools that do not require elaborate tooling or expertise are becoming much more popular.

Beam Dynamics machines eliminate the need for expensive tooling or time consuming setup changes. This allows you to make parts quickly and adapt to changing production needs. Prototypes, small jobs or large jobs can be run with equal efficiency. Multiple jobs can also be combined and cut in a single batch.

Laser Cutting to Replace Steel Rule Dies

Steel rule dies are still used for cutting many thin sheet materials in production. Products such as membrane switches, machine control panels and many printed products require cutting and trimming of complex shapes, aligned with the printed artwork.

Steel rule dies are difficult to design, slow and expensive to make and greatly limit the geometry you can cut. They are also large and expensive to store. They are efficient for cutting very large quantities of simple shapes, but are impractical for prototypes, small part quantities or fast turn-around.

An example is GM Nameplate, based in Seattle. They are a large manufacturer of nameplates, graphic overlays, labels, membrane switches and precision printed products. The have an inventory of thousands of steel rule dies, and storage alone is a problem. They initially bought an LMC machine for cutting thin Lexan sheets. It was so cost-effective that they have since purchased an LMC for each of their 5 plants, and have recently installed their first Lumen DCC.

For many jobs, they find that die cutting requires many days of design, 1-2 weeks to get the die made outside and many hours to setup a machine to cut. By contrast, a designer can start cutting a prototype part on the LMC almost immediately. From there, they can go directly to production parts without tooling. GM Nameplate currently estimates that for quantities as high as 8,000 parts, the LMC is much faster and less expensive than die-cutting. (This number can vary depending on the particular part.)

In addition, GM Nameplate’s designers are now free to make much more complicated parts than they could with die cutting. As customers begin to realize this, the demand for laser cutting is greatly increasing.

Laser Cutting Replaces CNC Routers

Many companies use mechanical cutters (routers) to cut flat sheet material. These can be computer controlled X-Y tables, or pin-routers which manually follow a pattern. Routers have many limitations. Cutting tools can wear out or become gummed-up from materials that contain adhesives. The diameter of most cutting tools are typically 1/8" or 1/4", which limits the detail that can be cut and does not allow sharp inside corners. (While you can find cutting bits that are much smaller in diameter, you can only do so at the expense of high speed and motion.) In addition, the material has to be clamped in place and the tool path must be carefully controlled so that inside shapes are cut before outside shapes.

By contrast, laser cutting is much faster, more flexible, and more precise. It also allows cutting thicker material. Programming is much simpler for laser cutting as you have to worry less about the diameter of the cutter and the toolpath.

Many manufactures find that the flexibility of laser cutting eliminates the many problems and limitations they face with routing techniques.

Laser Cutting of Complex Shapes

Some complex designs simply cannot be made with conventional cutting tools. In these cases, the only apparent solution may be making injection molded parts. This is prohibitively expensive for small quantities.

For example, a Texas company manufactures complex electronic connectors for aerospace applications. Their design requires cutting a complex pattern from small, flat plastic components. They have a large number of designs but need limited quantities of each part. Laser cutting was the best option for them, and has allowed them to greatly reduce costs in their manufacturing process.

Laser Cutting is Non-Contact

Some materials are too sensitive or easily damaged to be cut with mechanical tools, but are not damaged by the focused energy of the laser beam.

There are many applications for cutting fabric. A typical problem is that fabric can stretch or fray when cut mechanically. The laser on the other hand, does not distort the material and (especially with synthetics) can fuse the edges to prevent fraying.

MLI Blankets are used for wrapping satellites in space, protecting them from heat damage caused by the sun. They are made of polyester and polyimide and have many thin and delicate layers. Most cutting techniques cause shredding or welding of the layers when administered. Laser cutting, however, allows the material to be cut precisely and without harm to the layers or the blanket itself because it is non-contact.

Fabrics can also be kiss-cut, allowing layering processes to be streamlined. A customer of ours makes iron-on patches with sports lettering. This lettering is two-colored, with the same word and font glued on top of one another, to create an outline effect. They used to cut the two pieces separately using a knife-cutter, then painstakingly glue each piece together by hand. Now, they simply glue the top fabric onto the bottom fabric and place the entire swatch onto the laser cutting table. The machine kiss-cuts the top layer (meaning it only cuts the top layer—the laser does not reach the bottom layer), and then doubles back and cuts the bottom layer—all within the same job. Because the handwork has been eliminated, precision and time-savings have increased dramatically.

Another application is for a company that makes heater elements for toasters. These are made from sheets of compressed mica. The material tends to break or chip when mechanically cut, but laser cuts it extremely well.

The Laser as an Engineering Design Tool

The LMC is an extremely powerful tool when used by designers to create quick prototypes, fixturing or models. For designers using CAD programs, BEAM machines are as easy to use as a printer, and allow them to immediately turn complex designs into reality.

Raychem (Menlo Park, CA) uses laser cutters in their R&D design lab to create quick models, prototypes and displays.

Stanford University uses a laser cutter in their Product Design lab. Students use it extensively as a design and prototyping tool. It has become so popular that there is a long wait list to use the machine at the end of every school term.

Industrial Light & Magic, a Lucasfilm company, provides visual effects services to the entertainment industry. They use a laser machine to create models and a variety of related processes required in the production of visual effects. Their machine has been used for a number of movies, including Star Wars: Episode II and The Matrix Reloaded.

 

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