Different laser cutting machines are suitable for different materials

As of today, laser cutting machines are still the most common cutting method in the industry. Among them, laser cutting machines are divided into fiber laser cutting machines and CO2 laser cutting machines. According to different materials and products, the selected laser cutting machines are also different.

The wavelengths of the lasers generated by fiber lasers and CO2 lasers are 1.06 microns and 10.6 microns respectively. Both are infrared light and can be absorbed by materials. Therefore, they are only used for industrial material processing. Fiber lasers cannot cut non-metals, including wood, plastic, leather, cotton and linen fabrics, etc. If the material to be processed is just non-metal, fiber lasers can only be selected and CO2 lasers cannot be used. Including brass, copper, etc., CO2 lasers cannot cut. Because for CO2 lasers, copper is a highly reflective material, the laser is basically fully reflected and not absorbed, and the light is reflected back to the laser, causing harm.

At the same time, we can comprehensively evaluate the laser and equipment by cutting speed, cutting efficiency, cross-section quality and other aspects.

Fiber laser has its advantages in cutting thin plates, especially those with a thickness of less than 3mm. Compared with CO2 laser, the maximum cutting speed ratio can reach 4:1; and 6mm is the critical thickness for the two lasers to exchange advantages. Fiber laser has no advantage in cutting plates with a thickness greater than 6mm, and CO2 gradually becomes apparent with the increase of thickness, but it is not significant. In general, fiber laser still has an advantage in cutting speed.