Eurolaser News

Innovation right down to the last detail - eurolaser systems in operation

Eurolaser — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 12:39:47 +0000

The specialist for the manufacture, processing and design of plastic products for industry and trade was founded in Manchester (UK) almost half a century ago.

L-2500 Front (Click to enlarge)All manufacturing and processing procedures for the various plastics were in operation including bending, moulding, milling and sawing. However, an economical solution for the creation of filigree contours and smooth cut edges was needed if the product range was to be expanded. The suitability of the usual machining methods was very limited and involved expensive reworking. For Plastic Formers Ltd, investing in its first eurolaser cutting system seven years ago meant that a great number of possibilities were opened up for it to make use of its decades of experience in the plastics branch for new products.

Reflections when engraved PMMA is illuminatedJust as a third of all eurolaser customers have done, Plastic Formers shortly afterwards invested in a second system in order to meet the increasing the demand. Plastic formers, with its total of seven L-2500 systems, is today in a position to offer innovative solutions, especially for PMMA, from the design stage down to manufacturing - and this in large quantities and with delivery short times.

Strong growth made it necessary to move to new, and more importantly, bigger premises in September 2006. Björn Engler and Masoud Kordani, both experienced eurolaser service technicians, helped Plastic Formers with dismantling and setting up the seven L-2500 systems.

Daniel Jepson (l.) with eurolaser service technician Björn EnglerDaniel Jepson (Managing Director of Plastic Formers Ltd.): "Our state-of-the-art Acrylic laser cutting facility is probably the best in Europe, maybe the world. The eurolaser cutting systems are ideal for the manufacture of high-quality acrylic products with an almost unbeatable accuracy of detail, excellent quality, a wide range of applications and flexibility of performance. When combined with the latest software, these systems also allow largescale deep engraving for logos and images, which if engraved in fluorescent materials create a brilliant light effect."

Mass production in the new hall at Plastic Formers in Manchester

Quality begins in the mind and in the heart

Eurolaser — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 07:06:52 +0000

Certification in compliance with DIN EN ISO 9001:2000

The eurolaser quality policy is regularly checked for adequacy and efficiency within the framework of management evaluation and if necessary modified. This takes into consideration customer expectations and requirements, includes the commitment of all levels within the company to the fulfilment of the defined demands and continuous imp r o v e m e n t and forms the framework for the definition and auditing of quality targets.

The quality policy serves as the guideline for all employees in the performance of their work. Technical resources alone cannot guarantee our quality, it is the inner attitude of our employees that plays a decisive role here. High personal expectations placed on the individual's own quality of life is transferred to quality as a whole. Quality must be lived and experienced. It is continuously improved by the courage to accept positive criticism and the ordered urge to move
forwards.

Quality is a value in its own right. Each and every employee contributes to the quality of our products and services with his/her personal performance, which in turn leads to his/her personal success as well as to that of the company. Moreover, this ensures that work relevant to quality and product reliability is planned, controlled and monitored continuously. In this way eurolase fulfils the defined requirements that are placed upon the company in the form of customer specifications, sets of regulations or other rules. The quality of our products and services is to be permanently increased by means of a continuous quality improvement process built on the commitment of all employees at all levels.

The quality policy of eurolaser GmbH is discussed regularly with all those involved and continuously checked for adequacy.

Laser accurate contours and crystal clear cut edges - convinced?

Eurolaser — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 06:40:15 +0000

Acrylic Cutting and EngravingDifferences in quality in the cutting of acrylics. The worldwide boom that the advertising media industry has seen in the last 6 to 8 years has led to a renaissance of the material PMMA, also known as acrylic or plexiglass. Thanks to its advantages in comparison to glass, namely its weight and simple processing, an ever growing variation of applications is evolving. This in turn presents a challenge to the processing methods of this sensitive material.

Click on image to EnlargeAcrylic glass, if processed in the usual way, requires several machining steps if a clear, transparent surface finish is to be achieved on the cut edge. Conventional procedures, such as sawing or milling, entail a lot of problems. These start with waste in the form of acrylic chippings go on to the additional effort required for polishing or flaming involving the danger of creating rejects followed by the limitations on the inner contours and the need for one or two people who are familiar with these machining steps. For this reason such tools are now only ever used for standard cuts that need no special forms let alone filigree contours.

Eurolaser cutting systems for textile machining and processing

Eurolaser — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 20:06:37 +0000

L-2500 (click on image to enlarge)"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not one bit simpler." The famous German physicist Albert Einstein was convinced that a machine is only perfect if all its parts are necessary for its proper operation and none can be removed.

Eurolaser sees this simplicity as one of the most important factors of success. "We have set ourselves the target of developing laser cutting systems for industrial applications that are almost unbeatable in price and performance when compared directly to anything else on the market." As the leading German manufacturer of laser cutting systems eurolaser has been a pioneer in the development of non-metallic processing systems for over 12 years.

Of course our customers, who operate successfully in their respective branches with eurolaser systems, also benefit from this experience. The proof: a third of all systems sold are supplied to existing customers. The independence of the modular systems is another advantage. They can be driven by almost all standard software. This eliminates the need for costly licence fees and the time wasted getting to know new systems. Production can be started just as soon as the systems have been installed and the cutting parameters have been configured.

A single software for a large number of applications

Eurolaser — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 20:23:49 +0000

Drawing, camera recognition, nesting, raster engraving and system activation all in one

The launch of the extensive OptiSCOUT software range means that many laser applications, such as raster engraving and vector engraving and cutting, CCD camera positioning, can all be carried out simultaneously in a single work step using just the one programme. This saves preparation time and expensive licensing fees for different activation and graphics programmes.Extensive standard functions such as process gas and suction turbine switching as well as standard settings of the cutting parameters must be stored in the driver. This driver can be extended individually because the different cutting data are saved in a database and can be accessed according to the job in hand.

Click on image to enlargeConnecting a camera for recognition of cutting markings is child's play thanks to the USB Video grapper card, because you no longer have to make any changes to the PC hardware. The OptiSCOUT positioning system can recognise adjusting markings independently and can make linear compensation for any deviations. Before a job is carried out the camera, which is mounted on the tool head, locates the position of special adjustment markings that have previously been printed at strategic positions on the part to be cut out.

OptiSCOUT's correction algorithm compares the actual position of the adjusting markings with the ideal position of the original job. Using this data any necessary compensation can be made to linear inaccuracies resulting from the printing process. You can follow the scan or import process, the localisation of the adjusting markings and the process itself in a preview window. The user can see the status of the job production at any time on a real- time camera image.

Click on image to enlargeOther advantages of the OptiSCOUT software include the setting of lead in paths, for example, to allow tangential or vertical movement towards the cutting contour. As is the case with other software solutions, automatic cutting width correction is a must for the laser driver as this is needed to compensate material evaporation. Simple determination of the cutting sequences and extensive import functions from all standard graphics programmes are also a standard for any good laser system software. In addition to a nesting module other available options include a drawing module and extensions such as vectorisation, bitmap and serialisation tools.

Signgrafs Technology Co. - longstanding eurolaser partner in Asia

Eurolaser — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 21:09:41 +0000

Skyscrapers, traffic congestion and the daily appearance of new building sights - these signs of Asia's economic boom can be seen everywhere in the metropolises of China and Taiwan. For years now an up-and-coming industry for electronic devices has been developing in between the cookshops and little markets; devices that the industrialised countries of the west can no longer do without in their day-to-day business lives. Whether computers, telephones, televisions or other multimedia products - they all have one thing in common: an ever increasing demand for accuracy on the production machines. In many cases laser is the best tool for a lot of the processing steps because components are getting smaller and smaller and end users are demanding higher and higher standards of quality. Jimmy Liao, one of eurolaser's first agents and owner of the Signgrafs Technology Co., also notices this development. Many of his currently 40 eurolaser system customers operate successfully in the field of acrylic and foil processing and after a very short time invest in a second or third laser system. The headquarters of Signgrafs is located in Taipeh, the capital of Taiwan. The company also maintains four offices in China in order to cope with the high demand for machine servicing in this particular region. In addition to the sale and servicing of eurolaser systems, Signgrafs also manufactures laser processed components and end products in small and large series which it supplies to a great variety of branches.

CO2 - Carbon dioxide laser

Eurolaser — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 07:14:02 +0000

The carbon dioxide laser (CO2 laser) was one of the earliest gas lasers to be developed (invented by Kumar Patel of Bell Labs in 1964), and is still one of the most useful. Carbon dioxide lasers are the highest-power continuous wave lasers that
are currently available. They are also quite efficient: the ratio of output power to pump power can be as large as 20%.

The CO2 laser produces a beam of infrared light with the principal wavelength bands centering around 9.4 and 10.6 micrometers. The active laser medium (laser gain/amplification medium) is a gas discharge which is air cooled (water cooled in higher power applications). The filling gas within the discharge tube consists primarily of:

Carbon dioxide (CO2) (around 10-20 %)
Nitrogen (N2) (around 10-20%)
Hydrogen (H2) and/or (Xe) (a few percent)
Helium (He) (The remainder of the gas mixture)

The specific proportions vary according to the particular laser. The population inversion in the laser is achieved by the following sequence:

Electron impact excites vibrational motion of the nitrogen. Because nitrogen is a homonuclear molecule, it cannot lose this energy by photon emission, and its excited vibrational levels are therefore metastable and live for a long time.
Collisional energy transfer between the nitrogen and the carbon dioxide molecule causes vibrational excitation of the carbon dioxide, with sufficient efficiency to lead to the desired population inversion necessary for laser operation.

Because CO2 lasers operate in the infrared, special materials are necessary for their construction. Typically, the mirrors are made of coated silicon, molybdenum, or gold, while windows and lenses are made of either germanium or zinc selenide. For high power applications, gold mirrors and zinc selenide windows and lenses are preferred. Historically, lenses and windows were made out of salt (either sodium chloride or potassium chloride). While the material was inexpensive, the lenses and windows degraded slowly with exposure to atmospheric moisture.

The most basic form of a CO2 laser consists of a gas discharge (with a mix close to that specified above) with a total reflector at one end, and an output coupler (usually a semi-reflective coated zinc selenide mirror) at the output end. The
reflectivity of the output coupler is typically around 5-15%. The laser output may also be edge-coupled in higher power systems to reduce optical heating problems.

The CO2 laser can be constructed to have CW powers between milliwatts (mW) and hundreds of kilowatts (kW). It is also very easy to actively Q-switch a CO2 laser by means of a rotating mirror or an electro-optic switch, giving rise to Q-switched peak powers up to gigawatts (GW) of peak power.

Because the laser transitions are actually on vibration-rotation bands of a linear triatomic molecule, the rotational structure of the P and R bands can be selected by a tuning element in the laser cavity. Because transmissive materials in the infrared are rather lossy, the frequency tuning element is almost always a diffraction grating. By rotating the diffraction grating, a particular rotational line of the vibrational transition can be selected. The finest frequency selection may also be

obtained through the use of an etalon. In practice, together with isotopic substitution, this means that a continuous comb of frequencies separated by around 1 cm-1 (30 GHz) can be used that extend from 880 to 1090 cm-1. Such "line-tuneable" carbon dioxide lasers are principally of interest in research applications. Because of the high power levels available (combined with reasonable cost for the laser), CO2 lasers are frequently used in industrial applications for cutting and
welding, while lower power level lasers are used for engraving. They are also very useful in surgical procedures because water (which makes up most biological tissue) absorbs this frequency of light very well. Some examples of medical uses are laser surgery, skin resurfacing ("laser facelifts") (which essentially consist of burning the skin to promote collagen formation), and dermabrasion.

Because the atmosphere is quite transparent to infrared light, CO2 lasers are also used for military rangefinding using LIDAR techniques.

It is good to know "Types of Lasers"

Eurolaser — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 07:10:34 +0000

There are many different types of lasers. The laser medium can be a solid, gas, liquid or semiconductor. Lasers are commonly designated by the type of lasing material employed:

Solid-state lasers have lasing material distributed in a solid matrix (such as the ruby or neodymium:yttrium-aluminum garnet "Yag" lasers). The neodymium-Yag laser emits infrared light at 1,064 nanometers (nm). A nanometer is 1x10-9 meters.

Gas lasers (helium and helium-neon, HeNe, are the most common gas lasers) have a primary output of visible red light. CO2 lasers emit energy in the far-infrared, and are used for cutting hard materials.

Excimer lasers (the name is derived from the terms excited and dimers) use reactive gases, such as chlorine and fluorine, mixed with inert gases such as argon, krypton or xenon. When electrically stimulated, a pseudo molecule (dimer) is produced. When lased, the dimer produces light in the ultraviolet range.

Dye lasers use complex organic dyes, such as rhodamine 6G, in liquid solution or suspension as lasing media. They are tunable over a broad range of wavelengths.

Semiconductor lasers, sometimes called diode lasers, are not solid-state lasers. These electronic devices are generally very small and use low power. They may be built into larger arrays, such as the writing source in some laser printers or CD players.