In automobile, shipbuilding, pressure vessel, engineering mechanics and oil industries, you can often see the laser cutting machine and plasma cutting machine running 24/7 to do the metal cutting job. These are two cutting methods of high precision. But when you are about to purchase one of them in your metal cutting service business, what would you choose?
Plasma cuttingPlasma cutting uses compressed air as working gas and high temperature and high speed plasma arc as heat source to melt part of the metal. At the same time, it uses high speed current to blow away the melted metal so that a very narrow kerf. Plasma cutting machine can work on stainless steel, aluminum, copper, cast iron, carbon steel and many different kinds of metal materials. It features superior cutting speed, narrow kerf, neat cutting edge, low deformation rate, ease of use and eco-friendliness. Therefore, plasma cutting machine is widely used for cutting, drilling, patching and bevelling in metal fabrication.
Laser cuttingLaser cutting uses high power laser light on the surface of the material and heat up the material surface to over 10K degree Celsius in a very short time so that the material surface will melt or evaporate. At the same time, it uses high pressure air to blow away the melted or evaporated metal to realize the cutting purpose.
Since laser cutting uses invisible light to replace traditional mechanical knife, there is no physical contact between the laser head and the metal surface. Therefore, there won’t be scratch or other kinds of damages. Laser cutting features high cutting speed, neat cutting edge, small heat affecting zone, no mechanical stress, no burr, no further post-processing and can integrate with CNC programming and work on large format metal without developing molds.
From the above comparison, we can see that these two cutting methods have their own advantages. You can just choose the one which can perfectly suit your need. If what you choose is laser cutting machine, you have to keep one thing in mind - select a reliable industrial water chiller, for it is one of the key components that play an important role in the normal running of the laser cutting machine.
S&A Teyu has been serving the laser cutting market for 19 years and produces industrial water chillers suitable for cooling laser cutting machines from different laser sources and of different powers. The chillers are available in self-contained models and rack mount models. And the temperature stability of the industrial water chiller can be up to +/-0.1C, which is very ideal for metal fabrication requiring high precision temperature control. Besides, as the high power laser cutter is being introduced, we successfully develop a chiller model designed for 20KW fiber laser cutter. If you are interested, just check the link below https://www.teyuchiller.com/industrial-cooling-system-cwfl-20000-for-fiber-laser_fl12