Fiber Laser Cutting Best Practice and Pro Tips – EagleTec CNC

For newbies, it is often encountered that the fiber laser cutting edge quality is not ideal. And we may have no idea on the best practice for the fiber laser cutter machine at that moment. In this post, Let EagleTec CNC explain the details for you.

OK, let's start straightforward.

Factors That Affect the Laser Cutting Quality

The factors that affect the laser cutting quality include: cutting height, cutting nozzle type, focus position, cutting power, fiber laser cutting frequency, cutting duty cycle, auxiliary air pressure, and cutting speed. Hardware that affects cutting quality includes the protective lens, fiber laser cutting gas purity, plate quality, aggregation mirror, and collimation mirror.

When the cutting quality of the fiber laser cutting machine is not good, you are suggested to do a general inspection first. The main items and order of best practice are as follows:

Best Practice

• The cutting height is recommended to be adjusted between 0.8~1.2mm. Calibration is required if the actual cut height doesn't drop in the range. 

• Please check whether the type and size of the fiber laser cutting nozzle are misused. If the nozzle is appropriate, then please check if the copper nozzle is damaged. 

• A cutting tip of diameter 1.0 is suggested for optical center detection. The focus of optical center detection should be between -1 and 1 because the light spot is small and easy to observe at this time. 

• Please check if the protective lens is clean free of water, oil, and slag. Sometimes, it may fog the protective lens due to weather and climate factors. 

• Please check if the focus is set correctly. If the fiber laser cutting head is autofocusing, use the APP to check if the focus is correct.

Suppose the above five items are all well. In that case, we can go to the next step, modify the parameters according to the cutting phenomenon of the fiber laser cutting machine.

Stainless Steel Cutting Cases

There are many styles of dross for stainless steel laser cutting.

Pro Tips:

• If there is only dross on the corners, we can consider adjusting the roundness of the corners. As for the specific method, we can reduce the focus and increase the air pressure. 

• Suppose there is slag on all the cut edges; reducing the focus and increasing the air pressure would be necessary. But please bear in mind that too low focal length or too low air pressure will lead to delamination of the cross-section and lousy finish. 

• If there is soft granular slag hanging on all cutting sections, the cutting speed can be appropriately increased, or the laser working power can be reduced.

• When the fiber laser metal cutting machine cuts stainless steel, it may also encounter the phenomenon of slag hanging on the proximal side of the cutting. In this case, you can check whether the gas supply is insufficient and the gas flow cannot keep up.

Mild Steel (Carbon Steel) Cutting Cases

When we cut carbon steel with a fiber laser cutter, we may encounter the following situations: the thin plate section may not be bright enough. In contrast, the cutting edge of the thick plate may be rough.

Pro Tips:

• Generally speaking, a 1000W fiber laser source can get a bright and excellent cut on carbon steel with a thickness of no more than 4mm, 2000W is 6mm, and 3000W is 8mm. 

• To obtain a smooth and bright cutting effect on thin plates, i.e., in sheet metal laser cutting field, we should be sure the material must be a good plate without rust and oxidized paint on it and no skin. Second, the oxygen purity should be no less than 99.5%. Third, attention should be paid to the cutting: Use a small cutting nozzle with a double layer of 1.0 or 1.2; the cutting speed should be no less than 2m/min, and the cutting gas pressure should not be too big. 

• If you want to get a good cutting edge on the thick plates, like the thin sheet, we need to make sure the carbon steel board is clean and has high oxygen purity. And then, we should pay attention to the choice of incision: The larger the aperture, the better the quality of the section, but at the same time, the section taper will be larger.

All the above are all the tips on laser cutting setup. Need high quality and precision metal laser cutter? Please get in touch with us for a commercial proposal now.

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