Lasers and press brakes

WARRIORWELDING

Owner opperator Of WarriorWelding LLC.
Joined
Jan 6, 2008
Location
Chillin, Hwy 64 Mocksville NC
Who is running what? Brands, support, and capabilities.

Laser needs to cut Stainless at .25
Aluminum at .5
Steel will probably be set by above performance.

Laser bed dreams are capable of loading sheets while another run is being completed.

Press needs 16 foot capacity at 1/4 steel with minimum 12 foot open center between up rights.
 
Anyone?
 
Not a laser, but plasma. We run a Lincoln Electric PythonX 6-axis machine. Will cut anything but round stock, up to 1" thick and I think 3 feet wide. For round we use a Lightning rail plasma cutter.
 
Not much help for exactly what you’re looking for, but we have a newer 14’ Cincinnati 175 ton and an ancient Cincinnati 350 ton 12’.
I think the cnc back stop on the 175 needed service once and Cincinnati had someone out in a few days.
Whoever you buy one from will go over tonnage requirements for what you are trying to do. I would guess you’re in the 350 range to get 1/4” at a full 16’.

Our laser is also Cincinnati. It’s a 2000 model 3.5kW. Parts are getting hard to find, but it’s still kicking along. We can cut 1/4 stainless and 1/2” mild steel, but it doesn’t compare to newer fiber lasers.

I don’t think 6kW fiber lasers will even do .5 aluminum though. Any .5 AL we’ve subbed out has been water jet cut.
 
Austin Powers Shark GIF by reactionseditor
 
Not much help for exactly what you’re looking for, but we have a newer 14’ Cincinnati 175 ton and an ancient Cincinnati 350 ton 12’.
I think the cnc back stop on the 175 needed service once and Cincinnati had someone out in a few days.
Whoever you buy one from will go over tonnage requirements for what you are trying to do. I would guess you’re in the 350 range to get 1/4” at a full 16’.

Our laser is also Cincinnati. It’s a 2000 model 3.5kW. Parts are getting hard to find, but it’s still kicking along. We can cut 1/4 stainless and 1/2” mild steel, but it doesn’t compare to newer fiber lasers.

I don’t think 6kW fiber lasers will even do .5 aluminum though. Any .5 AL we’ve subbed out has been water jet cut.
have you laser cut anything in Aluminum in 1/8 to 3/16 range? does the cut edge require further processing? GTAW will be used a lot on seems.
 
have you laser cut anything in Aluminum in 1/8 to 3/16 range? does the cut edge require further processing? GTAW will be used a lot on seems.
1/8” we have almost no clean up. 3/16” we normally have a small burr to knock off. 1/4 we can cut but you’ll be de burring every piece. The laser edge doesn’t seem to effect gtaw much on aluminum as much as say mild steel does.
A corner to corner weld on 1/8 with a laser cut edge requires no processing and will weld beautifully right off the laser.
 
Not a laser, but plasma. We run a Lincoln Electric PythonX 6-axis machine. Will cut anything but round stock, up to 1" thick and I think 3 feet wide. For round we use a Lightning rail plasma cutter.
While you can plasma Aluminum, IIRC you have to remove material after cutting with a plasma to get a good weld for aluminum. Introduces impurities/slag?
Water jet?
I used to work for a company that used SE Huffman machines out of Clover. They made cutter grinders, water jets and lasers. I never ran a laser or water jet, I was making custom Endmills out of Ceramic and Carbide with 3-4-5-6 and once 8 Flutes. Was interesting measuring the diameter when we odd numbers of flutes.

Did some internet searching and I don't see them but they did get bought out by Optomec, which seems to specialize in metal 3d printing. If I get time later I'll look deeper.
 
While you can plasma Aluminum, IIRC you have to remove material after cutting with a plasma to get a good weld for aluminum. Introduces impurities/slag?
Water jet?
I used to work for a company that used SE Huffman machines out of Clover. They made cutter grinders, water jets and lasers. I never ran a laser or water jet, I was making custom Endmills out of Ceramic and Carbide with 3-4-5-6 and once 8 Flutes. Was interesting measuring the diameter when we odd numbers of flutes.

Did some internet searching and I don't see them but they did get bought out by Optomec, which seems to specialize in metal 3d printing. If I get time later I'll look deeper.
plasma and aluminum is out....to many degassing issues and not clean enough for our use. Wonder what a water jet does to surface finish on polished aluminum? The water alone is probably bad enough. The needed clean up and dry time would kill us on the aluminum. The ATP scratches with simple rags and glass cleaner. Stainless in polished mirror finish is just as bad.

A CNC router has been on my mind as a possible sheet aluminum option. The limitation would be the finer cut and small radius tool path we will prefer on some of our product line.
 
A CNC router has been on my mind as a possible sheet aluminum option. The limitation would be the finer cut and small radius tool path we will prefer on some of our product line.
www.coolspeed.com
For about $1200 and a good air supply, I know a guy who can make your tooling dreams come true ;)
 
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