Nozzles usually wear out faster when cutting with Nitrogen at high pressure due to the fact that they sit closer to the material surface. That being said, what is your pierce nozzle height for piercing/cutting?
As far as build up, is the Stainless you're processing PVC Coated (Plastic Vinyl Coated)? Does your machine have a nozzle cleaning function you can enable or include in your NC Program (subroutine)?
Can you spray some anti-spatter agent on top of the material to prevent the build-up after piercing from sticking to the nozzle?
Pierce Nozzle Gap seems fine, just curious to find out what material thickness are you cutting that you need a nozzle gap of 0.012". I've only seen this on thick stainless (0.187" to 0.75").
If you are cutting gauge material (22 GA to 10 GA or 0.030" to 0.135") I would use a nozzle gap of 0.020" to 0.030" since the diameter of the nozzle is 2mm at around 8-10 bars.
Keep in mind that nozzles are consumables and they wear out as I explained on my earlier post because you're cutting with high pressure gas and they sit closer to the material. Which machine are you using by the way?
I'm using a 3015FO-NT 4KW laser. We are running 11ga 304 Stainless and using the E-Z CUT N2 Generator. I have used Higher nozzle gaps but it doesn't seem to get any better.
I have also used our bulk N2 tank, it produces a britter edge but still chews up nozzles. I don't have this problem on any other material or thickness. It seems isolated to the 11 ga cut condition.
I will move the nozzle gap up to .020-.030 and see if it gets any better.
One other thought, there are four possibly five places to set your gap on any cutting condition. The obvious, already discussed, edge data, approach data, and pre-cut. Check them all out and i would go with the 0.020". Anything less is excessive (if you can say that). See if you can post a pictureit would help. You really don't need edge or approach for stainless.
I took the approach data out and it does reduce nozzle wear. Must be re-spattering the wiskers that are left after the pierce on the approach. I will try to get a picture of what the nozzle looks like after a sheet has been ran.
