A customer has asked if I can cut solid zinc sheet, between 0.030-0.060" thick. I have done zinc coated pieces before, but...can I even cut this on my CO2 laser? What problems am I going to run into?
I'm starting to hunt around for new laser options. I have a 90's Prima Platino 4KW that is slowly collecting more jumper wires and band-aids than a 40 year old Jaguar. We cut mainly stainless and inconel, up to 0.250". We occasionally cut thicker material- up to 0.625", but not often, and I'm...
Some parameters off of a Prima Platino:
Feed rate: 77ipm
Power: 2700
Freq.: 1000
Duty: 100
Nozzle gap: 0.047
Lens: 5"
Running at 65ipm, even with a 7.5" lens, you shouldn't have to go anywhere near 4000W.....
Jean, those sound like incredibly high pressures. For me, the benefit of lower pressures, in addition to keeping nitrogen consumption low, is to reduce the tip-ups of adjacent pieces caused by the nitrogen, especially on thin pieces. I've lowered my gas pressure on thin stainless and varied...
Yikes! Sounds like they need a day or two with a proper tech.
More knowledgeable individuals than me will soon step in, but...when cutting Stainless, I use a 0.080" single nozzle up to 0.140" material, and an 0.100" beyond that. Gas pressure varies from 8-13 bar as thickness goes up. I don't...
Having chased the mirror alignment issue for several days after a tech botched it, I can attest to this being a cause of burrs on one or two sides of a part... On my Prima Platino, I always center the beam at the same head height and focus position as the cut. It helps immensely.
We use several of them, mainly for Inconel alloys. As Shaun says, they will not remove anything more than light burrs, so parts with heavy dross must be hit with a belt sander before being tossed in. Cycle times will vary greatly based on piece size, material and media, but our cycles for...
LASERNINJA, wouldn't this be a result of the beam alignment farther up the chain rather than the lens itself? The first few mirrors in line past the output coupler aren't perfect, and the beam is angled as it comes into the lens, so centering the beam at one focal means it is off at another...
#1: I am not sure WHAT exactly you want to make bigger, but there are many different layout options in ST6. Right-click on the ribbon, and go to Themes, and experiment with different layouts available there.
#2: As far as I know, locking axial rotation is always a second step.
#4: I assume you...
Hi Chris,
Unfortunately, the last one went out the door with the tech. This particular instance happened to be some sort of contamination with our UHP Nitrogen...I swapped tanks out and the laser is OK again, more or less. I am gradually having to add power into the parameters though, which...
Like clockwork, every 2 years or so the laser starts dropping cuts, we get a tech in, and the output coupler ends up being replaced. This is a late 90's Platino 3500 with very low beam-on hours (2300 total). I just shut it down again today because of increasing cut drops and suspect the same...
Hi Norm- I started with a desired static ride height, track width, and rim size and offset, put the known spindle and ball joint geometry in, and then designed the A-arms and mount points from there. I had to actually modify the frame to get my 2.25" bump clearance through the steering sweep...
Thanks for the response, Brian. This is for a GT40 replica. The original travel for the front suspension was around 3.5" total- much worse. This is on a ~2200lb midengined car. I physically can't go any more bump or the wheels interfere with the body. (Would actually go through the hood.)
I've...
I'm building a new front suspension for an older kit car that had horrible geometry. This is a double a-arm front suspension, intended to be a road and track car. It is a difficult chassis to work with because the footwell intrudes on the suspension mount area, meaning that the chassis is not...
I can say that new SiCam is much better and has really sped things up for me, though you still get what you pay for. There are several major bugs in manual nesting specifically that will have you throwing your keyboard occasionally.
Also, be careful about updating OFFMACH on the machine! I...
Thank you guys for your input. I was slightly mistaken about what was going on. The chiller was originally filled with the correct mix of Dowfrost/distilled water. However, when topping off the chiller after that, the correct mix was not observed.
The more concerning thing is that the last time...