Using fiber lasers in cutting sheet metal is an advanced new technology that is being increasingly used for its powerful precision techniques and economical benefits. Lasers have helped make the shift to a more environmental friendly approach by cutting down energy cost and reducing consumption by 1/3.
Laser cutting also allows these vigorous steel machines to power through fabrication with machine controlled adjustment and quick height sensing for faster completion times. In fact, laser fiber technology has proven to be twice as fast in cutting thin materials than other cutting methods.
Lasers provide low maintenance cost and low cooling requirements to promote easy upkeep over time, they are also easy to fix with inexpensive replacement parts. Laser cutting is capable of handling all types of materials from very thin to dense, with excellent results and fine cutting that will improve your quality of work.
Wanna be on the literal cutting edge of metalworking technology? If your answer is yes, then you gotta get you one of these! Talk about taking a step into the future, once you have procured your first fiber laser you have indeed moved into the technology of tomorrow, and here’s why: One could think of fiber lasers as the culmination of an extremely active engineering period of about 35 years, where plate processing underwent an unbelievable evolution of improvement.
Let’s observe a moment of silence for all those gas and plasma tables of yesteryear, as their ranks are steadily getting taken over by the newer technologies. The revolution began slowly at first in the mid 1980’s when the first CO2 lasers began to enter the market. Right about the same time a totally new technology was being unveiled by a couple of rather obscure manufacturers.
What was that new technology? Water jet cutting, of course! There was probably quite a bit of head-scratching all around the metal working machinery manufacturing industry across the world when these machines started to pop up. What was this, you could under very high pressure cut steel plate with a little bit of grit and a high-pressure jet of water?
Not only that, besides being able to cut any kind of metal plate you could get under the nozzle, hard or soft, the doggone thing could cut all kinds of other materials that aren’t even metal. It could cut things like glass, marble, composites of virtually any kind, and even food like sheet cake! But alas, all was not perfect in the water jet world. The water jet did everything that it was asked to do; only one problem, it did most of those things rather slowly.
In addition to being slow, water jets also have a rather high need for continued maintenance to clean out the spent grit, and to remove water contaminated with grit. That’s not to say the water jet doesn’t have a place in today’s modern industry. With the ability to cut metal parts without any heat infusion of any kind is attractive to certain segments of our industry. In addition the edge finish is quite smooth with very exact corners.
The close cousin, one might say, of the fiber laser is the venerable CO2 laser. Lasers that cut using carbon dioxide were an evolutionary step in the progression to the king of the hill, the fiber laser. CO2 lasers are still very popular in today’s manufacturing facilities, but that is mainly due to the fact that they were available before the fiber ones came out, and many companies made a substantial investment in them. These lasers are not without their own maintenance requirements pertaining to the emitter, in addition to the required gases necessary to run the laser.
CO2 lasers, over their evolutionary history, have laid out some very distinct traits that have carried over to the newer fiber lasers. Accuracy is probably the most important trait the two systems share together. With five-tenths accuracy and two-tenths repeatability, these new lasers can deliver the goods, when push comes to shove.
When you just flat come down to it, what’s the main question customers always ask? “How fast can you run?” Yep folks, it’s all about speed. Sure, accuracy is important, but the first thing you do when you’re designing a machine tool is to see how fast it will go, then you figure out how to build that accuracy in. When a company spends the kind of investment that’s required to get into laser cutting, the machine will have to perform at the rate of 3 to 4 times the previous production rate to prove its value as an investment.
If your company is located anywhere in the Intermountain West — and even if it isn't — then the answer is always the same: Bud's Machine Tools, Salt Lake City, Utah. Nestled in the foothills of the Wasatch Mountains, just east of the Oquirrh Mountains, is where Bryan "Bud" Jorgenson's family has been conducting business in metalworking machinery sales for several decades.
Our fiber laser selection ranges from 1 KW to 6 KW power with either 5 foot by 10 foot table up to the 6 foot by 12 foot table size. The fiber lasers we provide offer two distinctly different table movement types. First is the linear bearing design, which has a faster positioning speed and is slightly more accurate. For our customers looking to spend a little less on their new machine, they can opt for a rack and pinion drive which is slightly less of an investment.
You should consider placing your trust in Bud's Machine Tools because we do business kinda like the old way. We mean what we say and we say what we mean. We have the experience to apply the right machine the first time, we have the technical service engineers ready to install and train our fiber laser customers. Our parts department is stocked and ready to ship out whatever you need on the same day you order that part. Through it all, we make sure the customer's needs are always met.
This is the way Bryan "Bud" Jorgenson's dad, Roger Jorgenson, did business in the industry when he started up those many years ago, and we are proud to carry on that tradition today. That’s why at Bud's Machine Tools we put the customer first, each and every time.
