Laser Cutting Aluminum

Application Details:

Polyethylene is a thermoplastic commodity heavily used in consumer products, most notably the plastic shopping bag. Over 60 million tons of the material is produced worldwide every year. Shopping bags just scrape the surface of the uses of polyethylene. Manufacturers make various other everyday consumer products from polyethylene including: tables, chairs, and outdoor storage sheds. The medical industry, in particular, benefits from polyethylene when it’s applied as a backing on a sheet of aluminum and used to seal test tubes.

In this application, circles were cut from a sheet of aluminum with polyethylene backing which is used to fuse a series of tubes to the sheet. The circles were cut so that the tubes could be easily removed from the sheet without causing any damage to the tubes and maintaining the seal. The aluminum sheet with polyethylene backing samples were processed using a pulsed fiber laser (1064nm, 1mJ @ 20kHz) through scanning head and160mm focusing lens. The process took 3.24 seconds per hole and cut through in just one pass using 100% power.

The application engineers recommended a Fiber Tower marking system with a pulsed fiber laser (1064nm, 1mJ @ 50kHz) and a focal length lens of 160mm.

Recommended Laser Systems:

FiberTower Desktop

The FiberTower Desktop has a very small footprint and compact height and is the first sytem in the industry to have the Z-axis and scan head controlled by the laser module itself. The light, compact Desktop can be carried by one person and is fully plug-and-play. Simply plug the compact system into any 110VAC outlet and you are in business producing high quality marks on production parts.

Hand Held Laser Marking System

The Hand Held Fiber Laser is a safe, state-of-the-art, Direct Parts Marking (DPM) alternative for Nd:YAG and Nd:YVO4 lasers (Lamp-pumped, Side-pumped Diode, and End-Pumped Diode). Components include a Q-Switched Ytterbium Fiber Laser with Scan Head, Industrial PC Controller, Power Supply, and Marking Software.

Direct Parts Marking, UID Marking, Date Codes, Bar Codes, Time Stamps and all other permanent marks on all non-movable parts and equipment for traceability and Code Compliance purposes.