Compressed Air Cutting | Fiber Laser Cutter

The video is talking the compressed air cutting in fiber laser cutter.

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In fiber laser cutting, we all know that the auxiliary gas is necessary and plays an important role in perfecting process. Why use compressed air as auxiliary gas? What are its advantages?
Some of my customers, they only use compressed air to cut. That is because their metal thickness are all less than 5mm, most are galvanized sheet and stainless steel. So here I would suggest that compressed air is more preferred to thin metals. But the metal thickness should be against the machine power, like 5mm stainless steel to 1000W, it is not kind of thin. And although there is less oxygen in air, it will lead to oxidation anyway, so if there is strong requirement on the cut results, especially those that will need more process steps after, please choose the most suitable gas, compressed air is not the best fit.

The advantages of compressed air, 1st should be the cost. It is much much cheaper than pure oxygen and nitrogen in process. Sure, it is necessary to purchase a compressed air system, and the initial investment will be higher, but if the laser cutting machine is used for long-term processing, it is easy to obtain by simple calculation, and it is still very cost-effective. 2nd is that there is about 20% oxygen and 75% nitrogen, so it can make up for the weak points of pure oxygen and nitrogen to a certain extent, like it will bring less over-burning and oxidation effect than pure oxygen(although the cutting speed will be a little slower than pure oxygen). And when cutting some thin metals, the effect will be better than using nitrogen(due to the oxygen composition, the cut section will be slightly yellowed.).

So compressed air is generally used for cutting thin metal parts. It is more readily available than pure oxygen and nitrogen and very cheap. When there is no strict requirement on the surface color of the material incision, it is the most economical and practical choice to use compressed air.

What are the common problems of compressed air in the application process? I'll give an example. Last summer, a customer suddenly bought 50pcs protective lenses from me, and I was very curious as to how the operation led to such consumption of protective lenses. After communication, it was found that he replaced a new air compressor, and then it seems that the cold-drying filtration effect is not so functional, so the protective lens is often contaminated by water and oil, which make the lens burns out. Fortunately, we found the problem in time and didn't damage the entire cutting head.

We all know that the compressed air contains water and oil. If it is not filtered and dried completely in time, when the gas passes through the cutting head and the protective lens, it will seriously affect the transmission of the laser beam, disperse the focus, and cause the effect to be not cut through; and it will directly burn the protective lens or even damage the laser head.

From here, we can see that the quality of compressed air has a very direct impact on the cutting quality and machine maintenance, so we will offer some suggestions on the air compressors, which do not involve any brand promotion.

1st, the air compressor must be equipped with a good dryer to remove the moisture as much as possible, and precision filters with high enough precision can be configured after the dryer to fully filter out oil and dust particles.
2nd, the dew point of the post-treated must reach 2-5°C, the residual oil content ≤ 0.001ppm, the particulate content ≤ 0.01μm, and compressor should be returned to room temperature after drying, effectively avoiding condensation again.
3rd, piston air compressors are easier to obtain high pressure, but much noisy, more consumables, and the exhaust oil is not well handled. Therefore, piston air compressors are generally not recommended below 1.6MPa. It is recommended to use screw air compressors below 1.6MPa, and select suitable refrigeration dryers and precision filters.

Finally, we provide some small suggestions on the daily maintenance of the air compressor.
1, the air tank and filters should be drained every day, and check whether the automatic draining is functioning properly.
2, check whether the operating voltage, current, and oil level are normal, and whether the internal joints and oil pipes of the machine are leaking oil.
3, clean the radiators and air filters every week to avoid high temperature and blockage of the air filters.
4, clean the strainer and valve core monthly to avoid clogging.