As a new industry, laser cutting equipment has a bright future. Several developed countries represented by the United States, Germany and Japan have developed rapidly in the field of laser processing industry. In major large-scale manufacturing industries such as automobile, electronics, machinery, aviation, steel, etc., they have basically completed replacing traditional technology with laser processing technology, entering the era of “optical manufacturing”. Laser cutting machine has the advantages of good controllability of energy density, narrow cutting seam, small deformation of workpiece, good cutting surface quality, unrestricted cutting shape and non-contact processing. The high efficiency and great potential of low-cost laser processing in industrial manufacturing have become the driving force for competition among major industrial countries in the world. They actively supported laser technology to become an important cutting-edge technology in their country, and accelerated the pace of formulating the national laser industry development plan. In China, laser processing technology has gradually entered various manufacturing industries, making it possible for China to develop its own laser processing technology. With the improvement of product technology and upgrading speed, agile manufacturing can be realized to meet the “personalized” market demand.
In order to improve the utilization of sheet metal and simplify programming, the straight edge of the plate must be parallel to the processing direction of the x-axis before laser cutting. Usually, manual calibration is used, which has low efficiency, large error, serious material waste and affects the processing efficiency. We have applied the automatic edge search function in the laser cutting machine. This function has the advantages of simple operation, high precision and short time consumption.
Automatic edge searching function of laser cutting machine
1. Introduction of automatic edge search function
Large format and medium thickness metal plates are placed on the closed machine tool workbench. The workers only need to press the “edge search” button, and the equipment will calculate the tilt angle of the steel plate in a few seconds. At the same time, the coordinate system of the machine tool will rotate accordingly to ensure that the X direction of the cutting is parallel to the direction of the long straight edge of the plate.
(1) System composition
The hardware connection and composition required to realize the automatic edge search function are shown in Figure 1, mainly including CNC, servo control, linear drive, sensor, etc.
(2) Principle of automatic edge search function
When the sheet metal is placed on the workbench, if it is tilted, it may cause waste in the cutting process. If the tilt angle and origin of the metal plate can be sensed, the cutting process can be adjusted to suit the angle and position of the metal plate, so as to avoid waste. The function of automatic edge search came into being.
The automatic edge search function is applied to the laser cutting machine, which solves the problem of low material utilization rate in the processing of large, medium and thick metal plates, saves the time of calibration plates, effectively improves the production efficiency, brings objective benefits to serve users, and improves the automation of the processing cutting machine.
