Oil for piercing with laser

[TURNnBURN]

We have Amada lasers equipped with oil shot for piercing. We have been spraying the sheets with WD-40 when cutting material thicker than 1/4" to help with pierce splatter. Our painter is starting to complain about the WD-40 on parts. The boss wants to look into using a different spray or using the oil shot. I haven't been using the oil shot because the oil Amada sells for the oil shot costs $270 / gallon. Have any of you used a standard oil in your oil shot systems or how do you deal with pierce splatter?
Thanks

 

[SGAFFNEY]

You might try using anti-spatter from weld department. Same basic function. I have had good luck with that on another manufacturers laser.

 

[TURNnBURN]

Do you spray anti-splatter on the sheet or does the machine have an oil shot system?

 

[SGAFFNEY]

Oil shot system. It sprayed the "oil" as the cutting head was coming down to pierce, pierced the material, and then could give an air blow (if turned on in NC code) to blow off splatter. This was only usually done when what was called "fast piercing" was used. It was on an LVD laser. It would save time to coat the plate rather than take the time to spray at every pierce, but heating of the plate while cutting would often cause evaporation and lessen the effectiveness as you got further in to the program.

 

[TURNnBURN]

Is your anti-spatter oil or water based, and do you buy it premixed? I'm concerned about clogging up the oil shot system.

 

[SGAFFNEY]

It has been several years and I don't remember. I don't know the Amada system so I don't know if waterbased would cause problems or not. You would have to ask Amada. I would talk to your welding supplier and see if they have other customers doing something like that. Unless the anti-spatter is much thicker than the oil from Amada, and I doubt that, then clogging should not be an issue unless you let it sit unused for long periods of time. Do you use outside service? If they have other customers with similar equipment they can also tell you what others are doing. Even if it is an Amada service guy, if you have a decent relationship he should be willing to tell you what others are using.