Laser cutting

Laser cutting is the use of a focused high-power density laser beam to irradiate the workpiece, so that the irradiated material quickly melt, vaporize, ablate or reach the ignition point, and at the same time with the beam coaxial high-speed airflow to blow off the molten material, so as to achieve the workpiece cut. Now the general use of CO2 pulse laser, laser cutting is one of the thermal cutting methods.

Water cutting

Water cutting, also known as water knife, that is, high pressure water jet cutting technology, is a use of high pressure water cutting machine. Under the control of the computer, the workpiece can be arbitrarily carved, and the texture of the material is little affected. Water cutting is divided into two ways: no sand cutting and sand cutting.

Plasma cutting

Plasma arc cutting is a processing method that uses the heat of high temperature plasma arc to melt (and evaporate) the metal at the workpiece incision, and uses the momentum of high speed plasma to remove the molten metal to form the incision.

wire-cut

Wire Electrical Discharge Machining(WEDM). Wire electrical discharge machining (WEDM). Wirecut Electrical Discharge Machining(WEDM), sometimes called wire cutting. Wire cutting can be divided into fast wire cutting, medium wire cutting, slow wire cutting. The wire speed of fast wire EDM wire-cutting is 6 ~ 12m/s, and the electrode wire moves at high speed, so the cutting accuracy is poor. Medium wire EDM is a new technology developed in recent years, which realizes frequency conversion multiple cutting function on the basis of fast wire cutting. The wire speed of slow wire EDM wireline cutting is 0.2m /s, the electrode wire does low speed unidirectional movement, and the cutting precision is very high.

Comparison of application scope:

Laser cutting machine has a wide range of applications, whether metal, non-metal, can be cut, cutting non-metal, such as cloth, leather, etc., can be used CO2 laser cutting machine, cutting metal can be used fiber laser cutting machine. The sheet deformation is small.

Water cutting is cold cutting, no thermal deformation, good cutting surface quality, no need for secondary processing, if necessary, it is easy to carry out secondary processing. Water cutting can punch holes and cut any material, and the cutting speed is fast and the processing size is flexible.

Plasma cutting machine can be used for stainless steel, aluminum, copper, cast iron, carbon steel and other metal material cutting, plasma cutting has obvious thermal effect, low precision, cutting surface is not easy to carry out secondary processing.

Wire cutting can only cut conductive materials, and cutting coolant is required in the cutting process, so the material that is not conductive to paper, leather, afraid of water, and afraid of cutting coolant pollution can not be cut.

Cutting thickness comparison:

The application of laser cut carbon steel in industry is generally below 20MM. The cutting capacity is generally below 40MM. Stainless steel industrial applications are generally less than 16MM, and the cutting capacity is generally less than 25MM. With the increase of workpiece thickness, the cutting speed decreases obviously.

The thickness of water cutting can be very thick, 0.8-100MM, or even thicker material.

Plasma cutting thickness 0-120mm, the best cutting quality range of about 20mm thickness of the plasma system is the most cost-effective.

The thickness of wire cutting is generally 40 ~ 60 mm, and the thickness can reach 600 mm.

Cutting speed comparison:

Cutting 2mm thick low carbon steel plate with 1200W laser power, cutting speed up to 600cm/min; Cutting 5mm thick polypropylene resin plate, cutting speed up to 1200cm/min. The cutting efficiency can be achieved by EDM wire cutting is generally 20 to 60 square mm/min, up to 300 square mm/min; Obviously, laser cutting is fast and can be used for mass production.

Water cutting speed that is quite slow, not suitable for mass production.

The cutting speed of plasma cutting is slow, the relative accuracy is low, and it is more suitable for cutting thick plates, but the end faces are inclined.

For metal processing, wire cutting has higher accuracy, but the speed is very slow, and sometimes it is necessary to use other methods to perforate and thread in order to cut, and the cutting size is greatly limited.

Cutting accuracy comparison:

The laser cutting incision is narrow, both sides of the slit are parallel and perpendicular to the surface, and the dimensional accuracy of the cutting parts can reach ± 0.2mm. Plasma can reach less than 1mm;

Water cutting does not produce thermal deformation, the accuracy is ± 0.1mm, if the use of dynamic water cutting machine can improve the cutting accuracy, the cutting accuracy can reach ± 0.02mm, eliminating the cutting slope. Wire cutting machining accuracy is generally ± 0.01 ~ ± 0.02 mm, up to ± 0.004 mm.

Slit width comparison:

Laser cutting is more precise than plasma cutting, the slit is small, about 0.5mm, plasma cutting slit is larger than laser cutting, about 1-2mm;

The slit of water cutting is about 10% larger than the diameter of the knife tube, generally 0.8mm-1.2mm. As the diameter of the sand cutter tube is expanded, the incision is larger.

The slit width of wire cutting is the smallest, generally around 0.1-0.2mm.

Cutting surface quality comparison:

The surface roughness of laser cutting is not as good as water cutting, and the thicker the material, the more obvious.

Water cutting does not change the texture of the material around the cutting seam, and laser is thermal cutting, which will change the texture around the cutting area.

Production input cost comparison:

Laser cutting machine models for different purposes have different prices, cheap such as carbon dioxide laser cutting machine is only two or three million, expensive such as 1000W fiber laser cutting machine is now more than one million. Laser cutting has no consumables, but the equipment investment cost is the highest in all cutting methods, and not a little higher, the use of maintenance costs are quite high, plasma cutting machine relative to laser cutting machine is much cheaper, according to the power of the plasma cutting machine, brand, etc., the price varies, the use of higher costs, basically as long as the conductive material can be cut.

The cost of water cutting equipment is second only to laser cutting, high energy consumption, the use and maintenance cost is also high, and the cutting speed is not as fast as plasma, because all the abrasives are disposable, and they are discharged into nature after being used once, so the environmental pollution is also more serious.

Wire cutting is generally about tens of thousands of pieces. But wire cutting is consumable, molybdenum wire, cutting coolant and so on. There are two kinds of wire cutting commonly used, one is molybdenum wire, used for fast wire equipment, the advantage is that molybdenum wire can be reused many times; The other is the use of copper wire, for slow wire equipment, the disadvantage is that the copper wire can only be used once. In addition, the fast wire walking machine is far cheaper than the slow wire walking machine, and the price of a slow wire is equal to 5 or 6 fast wire walking.