5 Benefits of Using Laser Cutting Technology to Process Materials and Manufacture Products
A laser is a beam of focused, highly coherent light that is capable of carrying and delivering large amounts of energy. Some lasers are employed to purely visual effect, as with the compact, hand-held pointers that so many have seen or used themselves.
Lasers generated using more power, though, can just as well be used to cut, shape, and otherwise alter a wide variety of materials. Using laser cutting technology for materials processing and manufacturing will provide a number of notable benefits in just about every case.
The Path to Today’s Laser Cutting Technology
Albert Einstein paved the way for the laser with his 1917 prediction that certain materials could be stimulated to produce electromagnetic radiation on demand. The first functioning laser was assembled at Hughes Research just over half a century later, and engineers quickly began advancing and refining the technology. Modern industrial lasers emit beams that are many thousands of times more powerful than the original.
A Practical, Appealing Way to Cut Many Materials
Such powerful lasers are frequently used today to cut materials ranging from metal and plastics to leather, wood, and fabric. As a quick visit to a website like www.laserlight.com/ will reveal, using a laser for cutting and manufacturing will often enable improvements with regard to important issues like:
- Accuracy. Mechanical blades and other cutting implements tend to be difficult to guide even under controlled conditions. Technologies like plasma cutting can sometimes seem superior, but repeatability frequently remains an issue. Lasers, by contrast, can be aimed with unparalleled accuracy, allowing for the same exact cut to be carried out again and again with no issue.
- Precision. Most cutting technologies rapidly reach their limits when high levels of detail and complexity are required. Programmable laser cutting machines can be made to perform cuts of microscopic precision. In many cases, laser cutting technology will outperform other options in terms of precision to an extent that it will be the only realistic choice.
- Speed. Despite being so accurate and precise, laser cutting technology can sustain impressive levels of throughput. Since more powerful lasers cut particular materials more quickly, output capacity can often be improved simply by switching to a different device.
- Quality. Most other cutting technologies produce ragged edges that need to be finished or otherwise accommodated. Lasers cut quite cleanly through many materials and typically waste less material in the process. The smooth, regular cut produced by a laser can even do away with the need to process a part further.
- Efficiency. Some cutting technologies use large amounts of energy relative to what they are capable of. Plasma cutting machines, for instance, are sometimes thought to rival lasers in certain respects, but fall significantly short in this one. More of the energy used to produce a laser beam goes into cutting instead of being dissipated uselessly.
The Best Option in Many Common Cases Today
Benefits like these and others help make laser cutting technology the best option of all for many modern manufacturing and materials processing programs. Laser cutting machines have been steadily displacing traditional alternatives for many years now.
While lasers do come with certain limitations and characteristic requirements, these issues will often pale in comparison to the advantages that this technology brings to the table. As such, choosing laser cutting technology will often make the most sense once all the relevant details have been taken into account.