PPI Expert Wanted
Posted: Fri Jun 29, 2012 9:04 pm
Hi
My laser is now getting a heavy pile of use for various projects. One of my main cutting materials is balsa - everything from 0.8mm (1/32") to 12mm (1/2") along with various plys and plastics.
My laser is 60W with a 63mm lens, I decided to give PPI a try with a view to reducing the amount of 'edge burn' on the balsa. It does indeed reduce the burn, but I have to increase power by a huge amount to get it to cut. As an example, 3mm balsa would normally cut at say 40mm per sec with 40% power and 20% cornering. Keeping the speed the same, I need to ramp up the power to about 95% to ensure it cuts through. The edge burn is most definitely reduced, but 95% power seem a helluva lot to cut through balsa as thick as a matchstick ! Reducing the feed kind of defeats the purpose to an extent as the jobs double in time - life is just a compromise
Without PPI, I can up the air assist pressure to about 2 bar and that reduces it by a huge margin, but that means using my air compressor rather than the wee hailea air pump.
I was hoping that PPI may have been a magic bullet - any other solutions ? Beam diameter with the 63mm lens is 0.2mm FWIW - I'm wondering if changing lenses might help ?
The 'process' side of things is not my strong point - I used to have 'process engineers' to do that for me
Cheers
Neil
PS Rather than stick this in a separate thread, does anyone know if the DSP will accept a 'pulsed' signal for the water flow input, or does it have to be a steady value - say a high for flow oK ?
My laser is now getting a heavy pile of use for various projects. One of my main cutting materials is balsa - everything from 0.8mm (1/32") to 12mm (1/2") along with various plys and plastics.
My laser is 60W with a 63mm lens, I decided to give PPI a try with a view to reducing the amount of 'edge burn' on the balsa. It does indeed reduce the burn, but I have to increase power by a huge amount to get it to cut. As an example, 3mm balsa would normally cut at say 40mm per sec with 40% power and 20% cornering. Keeping the speed the same, I need to ramp up the power to about 95% to ensure it cuts through. The edge burn is most definitely reduced, but 95% power seem a helluva lot to cut through balsa as thick as a matchstick ! Reducing the feed kind of defeats the purpose to an extent as the jobs double in time - life is just a compromise
Without PPI, I can up the air assist pressure to about 2 bar and that reduces it by a huge margin, but that means using my air compressor rather than the wee hailea air pump.
I was hoping that PPI may have been a magic bullet - any other solutions ? Beam diameter with the 63mm lens is 0.2mm FWIW - I'm wondering if changing lenses might help ?
The 'process' side of things is not my strong point - I used to have 'process engineers' to do that for me
Cheers
Neil
PS Rather than stick this in a separate thread, does anyone know if the DSP will accept a 'pulsed' signal for the water flow input, or does it have to be a steady value - say a high for flow oK ?