Five factors should be considered when selecting a laser
Laser is the heart of laser equipment and plays a decisive role in laser cutting quality. A good laser should have ideal mode, stable power and other elements. There are many kinds of lasers, which can be defined differently from different angles. According to the excited medium, it can be roughly divided into solid state lasers and gas lasers, which use different solid or gas as the medium respectively. At present, the mainstream lasers used for laser cutting are. With CO2 laser, it is relatively easy to obtain ideal laser mode and higher energy. With stable performance and short downtime, it is widely used in cutting various materials. How to select a laser depends on the following five elements:
1： Incentive mode. Carbon dioxide laser generates laser by exciting carbon dioxide gas with electrode. According to the installation position of metal electrode, it can be divided into DC excitation and RF excitation.
2： Beam divergence angle. Strictly speaking, the beam divergence angle does not belong to the laser part, but because the laser mode has a great influence on the far field divergence angle, we will discuss it here. The influence of beam divergence angle on cutting quality is reflected in the width and slope of the incision. The smaller the divergence angle, the narrower the width of the incision, the smaller the slope, and therefore the higher the quality.
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3： Laser frequency. The laser output is divided into pulse output and continuous output. The laser used for cutting and welding mainly adopts pulse output mode. The pulse frequency mainly affects the cutting speed and notch roughness. To obtain high-speed cutting, high frequency is essential. At present, the frequency of CO2 lasers produced by most manufacturers is within 5000Hz.
4： Laser mode. It is one of the most important indicators to measure laser quality. It can be divided into single mode, basic mode and multi-mode. The fundamental module is TEM00 module, whose exponents on X and Y axes are both 0, so it is an ideal dot. The laser with TEM00 mode can obtain the smallest beam diameter, and the smallest kerf and faster cutting speed can be obtained due to its small light spot in the cutting process. However, multimode is non zero exponent in XY direction, and its beam quality is poor. It is generally used only for welding rather than cutting.
5： Laser power. Including peak power, energy stability and other elements. Different power can cut through different thicknesses in metal plate cutting. Take 150W CO2 laser as an example, it can cut acrylic plates within 20mm or knife templates within 18mm; CO2 lasers below 90W can only cut acrylic plates below 12mm and wood plates below 8mm. Another index of power is power stability. Stable power is the guarantee of excellent cutting quality. Only when the power is stable can the cutting mouth be kept smooth.
In addition, in the process of using lasers, long-term production is also a very important test for lasers. The power of DC excited laser is attenuated due to electrode ablation. In addition, some laser vacuum pumps and turbine pumps use lubricating oil for lubrication, which causes the lubricating oil to pollute the laser resonator and shorten the life of the laser. Therefore, it would be best if your machine could have a rest after a period of work.
