[jbranting]

Hey all, I'm having an issue with our laser welding on stainless and to a lesser degree aluminum. We just had three techs out and put $25,000 in repairs into our machine, cracked fiber optic cable and a coupler with a mirror in it had a broken spring. I'm starting to think the problem is in the tech tables, but I'm not sure which way to go with it. I'm trying to cut 1/2" stainless, and the problem is at the pierce, once it starts cutting there are no quality issues, I am piercing with o2 and cutting with n2. I tried piercing with n2 for giggles and its the same. I have tried grinding the mill scale off first, i have tried sand blasting it first. I can grind the weld out and it will cut afterward but its getting tedious, this isn't the max material thickness for this machine. We also had the n2 checked for purity and its good, everything on the machine checks out thats why im leaning toward the tech tables, i could be wrong on that though, help please!

[elizabethminch6]

Hey all, I'm having an issue with our laser welding on stainless and to a lesser degree aluminum. We just had three techs out and put $25,000 in repairs into our machine, cracked fiber optic cable and a coupler with a mirror in it had a broken spring. I'm starting to think the problem is in the tech tables, but I'm not sure which way to go with it. I'm trying to cut 1/2" stainless, and the problem is at the pierce, once it starts cutting there are no quality issues, I am piercing with o2 and cutting with n2. I tried piercing with n2 for giggles and its the same. I have tried grinding the mill scale off first, i have tried sand blasting it first. I can grind the weld out and it will cut afterward but its getting tedious, this isn't the max material thickness for this machine. We also had the n2 checked for purity and its good, everything on the machine checks out thats why im leaning toward the tech tables, i could be wrong on that though, help please!

We’ve found the best of luck with spraying down anything thicker than 1/4 with WD40. It helps cool the plate while cutting.