Even though I don't know much about this stuff, it sure is fascinating to watch and especially to see how you overcome the hiccups. "The difference between an amateur and professional is that a professional knows how to cover his mistakes."
Great video and information! A small tip, take or leave. Research something called laser destruct where it cuts the center drops into cross sections/pie pieces that fall out of way of laser head and into the tray below. Yes, adds a little cutting time and probably 2 pierces but will allow you to nearly walk away and do other things while machine is runing.
Awesome, not familiar with that, but I did have some small letters a while back that were giving me fits and I finally added a cross hair cut in the center to allow it to drop out properly. I will checkout laser destruct.
I love dialing in challenging parts. Focus is more than likely your issue on those first parts. I've been running a 120x240" Mitsubishi fiber with shuttle table. Also on the numbers you're cutting if you just nest all small holes before the bigger hole in the middle and don't cross back over where you've already cut it won't tip those up. Nothing to do with pressure. There is also usually a function that turns gas off between pierces to avoid tip ups when using N2
That's is an amazing piece of machinery. I'm sure you are learning something new everyday when you set it up. I would be like a kid in the candy store if I had a machine like that. Nice work.
@@turbocobra I'm doing well Gary. It is always entertaining and a learning experience to watch your videos. I appreciate you sharing with us. I'm in Ohio but and ready to retire but never to old to learn something new. Thanks again.
Hi Ramsey, Just inquiry about you laser cutter training video, I am currently have 1500w ipg laser , will this video teach me how to set parameter on different thickness of carbon steel? Apparently i am not quite sure what each of parameters suppose to do. Thank you Josh
I am currently reasearching laser cutting machines for a project in which I'd be cutting a lot of stainless. The sales rep suggested me to go for the compressor, since I'd be using mostly nitrogen and would save a ton of money with it. Do you have any toughts on that?
Very interesting. It’s obviously a big investment in time and money. What are some of the other consumables you need besides the gasses. Are there any laser parts that have to be replaced on a regular basis. I’m trying to work out why some shops have water jet and others laser. What the benefits of one over the other. Thanks heaps, Stuart 🇦🇺
I run a Zund I Cutter D3 duel beam. no laser module. Mainly drag blades, oscillating, routeing, creasing, perforating and kiss-cut tools. Cool to see It done by laser. Best thing about that laser was being able to go back and re-cut. Dont always have that luxury. Depending on type of materials and tool. Is the cutting bed iron?
In my film lab, we used nitrogen for the developer tanks. Either those SS CLS 80 tanks, or 9” dia gas. We never needed a vaporizer. We simply used the gas outlet. I’m talking about pretty low pressure and volume, in bursts.
Keeping the pump timer set high isn't the best solution. On most CNC mills and lathes where power supply for the pump is controlled by the CNC, the pump only cycles when the machine is is actually moving. If yours doesn't, have you tried just hitting the E-stop? On most machines that cuts power to everything except the control. I'd look into both options instead of cutting off the lube system like you're currently doing.
for the gear at the beginning of the video, try switching back to Nitrogen and cut each of the gear "scallops" as smiles, and then follow up with a circle to connect each of them. It will increase the processing time, but it will sharpen up all of the corner transitions and should help with your cut quality.
Has your nesting programme got a scrap cut on it. The scrap cut cuts it into how many sections you want then it should fall through the bed in between the slats. Think that would help you a lot. That is what I use to stop them bits tipping up. I use radan for nesting. Wish o could show you tanks I have at work. Massive tanks oxygen and nitrogen. I cut stainless to copper to Alu through the day. I have only been doing it for 2 years now and it’s nice to see how you over come problems. If I see anything I can help you with I will let you know.
I am curious to know if the software package you are using automatically arranges the nesting sequence of items on the sheet of metal? If not this must be a process to accomplish. Anyway, I love how clean the cut edges are leaving zero cleanup. Fascinating. Great video. Thanks!
Yes the software autonests the parts. There are several strategies you can choose from. You basically just load all your dxf drawings and tell what size sheet you are using and it generates a program for you.
Gary, have you tried taking some of the slats out to reduce tip up's? It worked pretty well on my plasma table for bigger parts almost all the small details dropped out with no issue. Just wondering is that could be applied to laser.
On a part that small you need to be using a much slower, lower powered cuttimg condition. Your machine isnt able to reach the speed it needs to achieve a clean cut on the outside because it is constantly changing directions. Use nitrogen on both cuts as n2 helps cool the material around the cut. You also did not purge the n2 out before switching to o2, so the o2 will be contaminated with the nitrogen at the start of your cuts.
I had Dynamic power adjust enabled. This is where the power is lowered on a % of the overall speed the machine is running at. 1KW just doesn't have the power using N2 to blow through and get a clean cut on thicker materials above 2mm range.
How do you quote jobs like that first one? Do you estimate cycle time per part, multiply times number of parts, charge a flat set up / programming fee, plus stock, or do you tell your customer, shop labor rate of $ xxx.xx, plus stock, and you'll give them a total at the end.of the run? Good video
How much safety precautions do you have to take to protect eyes from the laser reflection? Do you have to wear goggles? Do you have to keep people out of the room?
I would put micro tabs on all parts smaller than the width of slats. We always look at the program after nesting to make sure we don’t have a chance of tipping. We run a 6000 watt and it moves to fast to stand and watch. I tab 3/8” parts
Heya Gary! I noticed you do a lot of babysitting of the machine in this video and that is an inefficiency! Have you considered setting up the cutting process into separate passes with a pauses in-between so that any tip-ups during a pass won't interfere with any of the other cuts in the pass, and then after the first step is done it'll pause and wait for you to come by and fix any tip ups before it does the next pass?
yea, i kind of alluded to that in the video, that there are many things you can do to help manage tipups. Larger micro joints, the cut direction/pattern (from part to part), part gap, if its a little larger, it may allow it to miss the tipup, and so on.... it's all learning and usually some kind of compromise. I don't really do production cutting, so i usually just kind of go with it.
Man! you really have that baby humming. Couple of questions: How often do you have to remove the pointed material support plates to remove the scrap that falls through? As you use the machine I see that the pointed ends on the pointed material support plates get pretty rough. Does that have any effect on the (cutting), from a laying flat on the table standpoint? Pointed material support plates replacement. I would assume that you cut them yourself on the machine as needed? Amazing machine and you have done an excellent job mastering its operation. Many thanks for sharing. John
Hey John, Yes I can cut new slats. These are 8-9 months old, still in good shape overall. No it doesn't effect the cutting on the uneven points, the capacitance height sensing is very fast and sensitive, so it can adjust as its going along. Thanks!
Gary one more thing in my system I inject a grease in the x y bearings once a few months I do not understand why you oil it, I overinject them , the dirty grease come out wipe off an inject fresh one and several months of peace Best Tad
I cut up to 3mm mild & stainless steel with Air (6.0 bar/80-90 psi). I have stretched it out to 5mm but there will be a big burr to grind down. That said, if it saves having to put our hands in our pockets for Nitrogen that's fine. I've also cut 3mm aluminium the same but haven't tested the air limits on that material yet.
@@turbocobra I know Trumpf CO2's all the way down to 2kW can do the same. Which would be equivalent to a 1-ish kW fibre?? And just the other day I saw a guy with a 150W hobby laser cutting thin steel with air. So I'd say yours should do it no problem.
Thank You for Your time and lot of usefull ideas, I’m Thinking also to Buy Fiber for years from china I have co2 laser for Wood and acrylic, can You try sometimes cut polished Chrome SS, is it possible to achieve perfect cut with out Burns or fogg on the face, Cutting with protective mask ? I know Just cut is easy but how to cut already bruched Ss finish or polished Chrome SS and at the same time keep the face in flawless condition.
Hi my friend we have mix cutting co2 laser for SS ,Acrylic , Wood , but meanwhile ,we also have fiber laser cutting machine ,if you wanna learn more about this details please PM me
I haven't seen any of your videos since you bought this laser table..... have you looked at a 'brush' type support instead of the pyramids? I see them in other videos...I know you're a sharp guy with electrical stuff, could you connect that oiler to your assist gas 'relay' so it only runs when the laser is moving? I'm guessing that oil deal is a thorn in your side right now...! Nice work you're getting out of that machine. Nice if those HAZ edges could be better...
I have seen other videos where they say the entire machine must me in a box or a reflection could blind someone , is that a different kind of laser ? Also what do you think about the new blue lasers ? Thank you
Yes thats what they say. But as long as you wear the 1064nm protective laser glasses you will be fine. But some states/countries could have requirement that this machine needs to be in a separate room or have a partition built if you have employees
@@turbocobra That makes sense I read that epoxy is illegal in Sweden due to it being a sensitizer and in other places people use it like it was nothing.
Hi Gary, are you going to try out UHP Oxygen for assist gas sometime? I would be interested in the results since there is a lack of information online.
Hi Ramsey. Ordered cheap 300Bar compressor and I will try to put 200 bar into 50 liters bottle. Then run laser from this bottle (with pressure reducer). Do yo you think this will work?
I have equipment with a similar oil system. I hit the emergency stop button when I am away from the machines and don't want to shut down. That prevents the oiler from running on my machines. Just a thought.
not a bas thought, but i think all that the oiler gets my the machine is power, the timing, etc is done on the control panel of the oiler, e stopping just stops the motion of the machine, dont think it would shut power to that but i can try it!
@@turbocobra It might be possible to wire a relay or contactor to the estop circuit, using that as a switch to turn off the oil pump when estop is active. Switches and relays/contactors have normally open and normally closed versions, while some do both. The estop on my plasma is normally closed so that if a wire breaks it stops and the estop switches also break the circuit. My swamp cooler has a normally closed contactor and when I hit the foot pedal on my tig, a timer sends power to the contactor, shutting off the cooler so my gas doesn't blow away. When the timer is up, after no pedal activity, the water pump and cooling fan on the tig will shut off and the cooler comes back on. The tig is a 1965 miller 330abp that I added a few relays, contactors, and a timer to........the same could be done on that oil pump, but would be even more simple than what I rigged up.
how does your laser head not hit any of those parts that are tilting up and moving your whole sheet around, it seems like its moving super fast and is very close. thats one hesitation i have i make parts that tip up alot and i use a plasma now and have had some instances where it catches a tip up and smashes the entire damn machine up. Do you not get that?
I know this comment is old but Laser has real time capacitance adjustment. Meaning it detects a charge between the metal and head. When a tip up happens like this, it will follow the tipped steel.
Fiber laser power is not a plug and run system. It needs professional training before play with it. Like work temperature relationship with water chiller, installation with laser cutting head, Cutting parameter setting with cnc controller.... etc. If no good training in advance, it's hard to get what you want.
Hey. I'm Arthur, I run the smoothieware open-source cnc controller project. Ever thought about adding a vacuum pad or electromagnet so the machine can actually collect the cut parts and drop them in a box somewhere? Could help you do that. Do you think it'd improve your productivity significantly? Or it's not worth the bother? Do you want an on/off switch on your oil pump? Or add something so that it only turns on when the machine is running? I could help you do that. Cheers! Edit: Wow that's a lot of handling. I can definitely help you with reducing that.
Just a thought, have you ever considered selling the drop outs? I can foresee see people with smaller fiber & co2 lasers using the drop outs for projects. A penny saved is a penny earned!
Yes! they are for sale on my website. $33 for medium flat rate box full, its just random drops in random thicknesses. I don't really sell that many, but then again i don't advertise it. Hence, you didnt even know i sold them. I am bad at marketing my own stuff lol.
Just wanted to ask you one thing . How do you charge your customers? Do you have a certain algorithm? I am buying a similar mashine and I just can't tell how to charge someone because there are so many different things to consider
yea, basically material costs, level of detail, size of part, quantity ordered, setup time for the job, cutting assist gas type, and overall time to cut the job and process the parts once they are cut.
@@turbocobra essentially time and material. what is a range for time charge? ie 75$ per hour? How long did the space force job take on the table/laser? Is it typical to have a flat rate to take "art work" to G-code? ie the work prior to cutting. Thanks again.
Thanks for the quick response. In my previous job, I work with a trumpf laser cutter. The trutops software is awesome. Unfortunately, neither the machine nor the program is so good in my new job. Now i am using the wrykrys sofware, but I'm looking for something similar to trutops. I would be grateful if you could recommend a few usable programs. What i saw in this video was the cypcut?
@@wangpreston3124 Hi! My company has a noname laser cutter. I only need a better nesting software, near similar to trutops, that would make my job easier.
Awesome. Thank you. I have been having issues with my 500 watt laser burning corner. 14ga mild steel. I’m running at 85% power, 3 speed and .5 pressure (Chinese measurement). Can’t figure out why it keeps burning the point areas. Any thoughts at all. I have a picture if you’d be willing to look at it and give me some advice.
@@bradwriedt8856 so you running .5 bar? or .5 MPA or what? Join the facebook group that I run (cnc fiber laser ninja's) and post up your pics and info and we will help you with it
Our Trumpf also lubricates itself every 8hrs. Although in the winter time, the oil/grease gets cold and thick and won't move through the tubes. So we spend all morning trying to get the machine to go haha.
Bro , you gotta secure those tanks man ,we like you to much , i dont think you realize how dangerous it is to leave those tanks not tied off . there are videos of these things falling over and nocking the neck off the valve and boom you got a 70 lb rocket
Its pretty busy. I really need to hire and train an operator, and continue to dial in the cut quality. some things it does an awesome job on, other things it does not, i have gotten better at turning down jobs I know it will not do well.
Sure does suck. I found it’s good practice to always manual edit the program to never have any movements that cross over a cut part area. Also to leave a small tab to keep parts in place.
@@turbocobra my slats are cut from 10g sheet. on the plasma. my palsma table WAS a commercial laser in a former life. i threw away the aluminum honeycomb and put in slats. there is no difference in the slats between my table and a laser table except mine are an inch longer than the table is wide. so when you put them in they are sprung into place. they dont wobble or oscillate. loading and unloading is just as you described sheets slide across like glass. your work is more harmonically stable and better supported given identical slat spacing because of the arcs they form. i understand the way china does is the way china does. But its not the BEST way. Its the way they copied. anyhoo. free advice is worth watcha pay.
@@turbocobra Here's the gist of it: i.imgur.com/lklNoZS.jpg basically, you're dividing and cutting inner contours first into multiple smaller pieces (without microjoints) so that they fall through your slats...then you go around and cut the final external contours. We use a Bystronic laser and their BySoft programming software has a sheet metal thickness to part size lookup table built-in to assign this type of cross cutting to parts automatically...in your case, you could simply break up the shapes you think will prop up into smaller pieces using cut lines without any lead-ins. Hope this helps!
yes, they are awesoem for thick or non metal cutting, but are a maintenance nightmare and are by far the most costly machine to operate. good for thick material, but no comparison in speed and performance on thin material
Water jets are great for certain applications as they can cut a wide variety of materials and cut relatively thick material. But they require lots of maintenance and constant clean high water pressure from the city. They are very finicky and expensive to maintain. They are dirty, loud, slow, and everything around it rusts and gets covered in dust. They require tons of abrasive that turns into a thick mud that settles inside the tank and has to be emptied regularly. A laser is much easier to maintain, cleaner, and cuts way faster. It’s a way more efficient way to make money.
Pronest? Nawh man, if I spend any money on nesting software it will be sigmanest. Nitrogen cuts thin carbon steel way faster and nicer than oxygen, especially small letters and details. I do cut 16 gauge and thicker with oxygen alot. Sometimes even within the same part will cut small features with nitrogen, and larger features with oxygen
You've got more nitrogen than NASA uses on a space mission. LOL. Too many risky things involved in Laser for me and I'm not seeing any major improvements in quality. Comment?
Your not seeing improvements in quality of what ? What are you using now? Man, I am not here to convince anyone of anything. Just present the information and you can decide
