The acquisition cost of any laser machine depends on a wide range of factors such as laser power, cutting area, automation levels, etc. A new fiber laser cutting machine cost around £275,000 – £550,000. A second fiber laser cutting machine will be cheaper, but machine’s real quality and status can’t be promised. Even if solid state laser technology is becoming popular and mature, the cost of laser systems is decreasing, purchasing a new fiber laser cutting machine is still a big expense.
Newlaz can solve this problem. We researched a system which can retrofit CO2 laser to fiber laser cutting machine without changing stable machine tool structure and CNC control system. And this solution has been proved to be successful by more than 100 customers all around world.
The purpose of retrofitting CO2 laser to fiber laser is to maximize the profit. Do you agree?
Except improving cutting efficiency, reducing extra costs is also one way to increase profits.
So what’s difference of main cost between CO2 laser and fiber laser after retrofitting?
1. Maintenance cost
Fiber lasers have significantly lower maintenance requirements than their CO2 counterparts. The main difference comes from the laser beam delivery system.
a. Fiber lasers have a monolithic configuration whereby the laser beam is delivered to the cutting head via a fiber optic cable.
This means that the optics path is completely protected from contaminants. The two main consumables of a fiber laser are the nozzle (the same applies for CO2 lasers) and the protective lens.
CO2 lasers use bend mirrors contained within bellows (sometimes filled with nitrogen) to deliver the beam to the cutting head.
The mirrors and bellows will get dirty over time and will need cleaning/replacing regularly to prevent a decrease in the cutting performance. The repetitive movement of the machine produces holes in the bellows over time.
b. Given the beam delivery system is more exposed to the environment (temperature, moisture etc.) than fiber lasers, CO2 lasers experience higher levels of variation in the quality and output of the laser.
The heat of the laser often causes the mirrors to distort, reducing the power supplied to the cutting head leading to the misalignment of the laser beam. This may require changes to the cutting parameters to counter this variation which can be a timely process.
c. The main and most costly issue with CO2 lasers occurs when the laser beam is reflected back down the beam delivery system causing damage to the expensive oscillator.
d. Maintenance of a CO2 laser cutting head can take between 4-5 hours a week compared to less than half an hour a week for a fiber laser.
e. The alignment of a laser beam is important to ensure an even cut finish on all sides of a profile
The most common cause of misalignment is a collision between the cutting head and a tipped part and can happen for both CO2 and fiber laser systems.
Misalignment is both more complicated and time consuming to correct on CO2 lasers due to the nature of the beam delivery system which normally contains at least three mirrors.
For fiber lasers, only a single lens needs adjusting.
In the next article, we will continue to talk about the rest different cost between CO2 laser and fiber laser. cutting.
