Judging the cutting quality of the laser cutting machine is the best way to intuitively judge the performance of the laser cutting equipment. Here, REDSAIL laser lists some nine criteria for judging.
- Roughness. The laser cutting section will form vertical lines. The depth of the lines determines the roughness of the cutting surface. The shallower the lines are, the smoother the cutting section will be. Roughness not only affects the appearance of the edge, but also affects the friction characteristics. In most cases, it is necessary to reduce the roughness as much as possible, so the shallower the texture, the higher the cutting quality.
- Verticality. How to make the thickness of sheet metal exceed 10mm, the perpendicularity of the cutting edge is very important. When it is far from the focus, the laser beam becomes divergent, and the cutting becomes wider toward the top or bottom according to the position of the focus. The cutting edge is a few millimeters away from the vertical line. The more vertical the edge, the higher the cutting quality.
- Cutting width. Generally speaking, the cutting width does not affect the cutting quality. Only when a particularly precise contour is formed inside the part, the cutting width has an important impact. This is because the cutting width determines the minimum internal diameter of the contour. When the plate thickness increases, the cutting width also increases. Therefore, in order to ensure the same high accuracy, no matter how wide the incision is, the workpiece should be constant in the processing area of the laser cutting machine.
- Grain. When cutting thick plates at high speed, molten metal will not appear in the notch below the vertical laser beam, but will be ejected at the back of the laser beam. As a result, curved lines are formed at the cutting edge, and the lines closely follow the moving laser beam. In order to correct this problem, reducing the feed rate at the end of the cutting process can greatly eliminate the lines of lines.
- Burr. Burr formation is a very important factor that determines the quality of laser cutting. Because burr removal requires extra work, the severity and amount of burr can intuitively judge the quality of cutting.
- Material deposition. The laser cutting machine touches a layer of special liquid containing oil on the workpiece surface before melting and piercing. Gasified and various, the materials do not need to be blown away by the customer, but when discharged upward or downward, they will also form deposits on the surface.
- Depression and corrosion. Dents and corrosion adversely affect the surface of the cutting edge and affect the appearance. They appear in cutting errors that should generally be avoided.
- Heat affected area | in laser cutting, the area near the incision is heated. At the same time, the structure of the metal changes. For example, some metals harden. The heat affected area refers to the depth of the area where the internal structure changes.
- Deformation: if the cutting causes the component to be heated sharply, it will deform. This is particularly important in fine machining, because the contours and connecting pieces here are usually only a few tenths of a millimeter wide. Controlling laser power and using short laser pulses can reduce component heating and avoid deformation.