LS6040 Efficient cutting

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GranttEnnis
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LS6040 Efficient cutting

Post by GranttEnnis »

Hey team!

I want to speed up the cutting on my LS6040 to make each cut faster. I've got the best speed/power ration on the laser itself - I was simply wondering if there was a way I could organise the cuts themselves to speed it up? It seems to be really inefficient with it's cutting, moving all over the place with no rhyme or reason - will I speed it up considerably by reorganising those cuts?

And if that's the case - how do I do it?

Cheers guys and girls!

Grantt
Daven
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Re: LS6040 Efficient cutting

Post by Daven »

It can speed it a bit (depending how much it is jumping about).

There are various ways.

First make sure all items are self joined (so it cuts a square in one pass for example).

You can use the 'Output order' option in Lasercut to adjust the order but that can be time consuming.

Draw the plan in the order of cut (some people re-draw once the plan is finished).

Simple and clunky way is to select smaller areas of the plan and save them to different layers and then order the layers (less distance for the head to travel).

Best
Dave
Using two LS3060's and an ex 3020 user
Please note I am not employed by HPC, any advice or recomendations I give are based on my own experience and are not necessarily the same as HPC's. First point of contact on any hardware issues should be with HPC
GranttEnnis
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Re: LS6040 Efficient cutting

Post by GranttEnnis »

All excellent tips.

Out of curiosity, what speed for shallow and full cutting would you recommend for 3mm MDF. This is relatively constant work (this is my business), so I'd want a speed the machines could maintain without damaging them extensively.

We current run ours at speed 20 and power 50 (laserscript system, LS6090) and that seems to give us clean cuts at a reasonable speed. Could we speed it up and raise the power without burning out our laser? Sorry if this seems like a stupid question.

Grantt
Daven
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Re: LS6040 Efficient cutting

Post by Daven »

Best speed and power settings are variable to be honest - I have two 3060's and each have different settings for the same job! The differences being in the optics, tube, air assist, extraction and even power supply (AFAIK). Use what you feel comfortable with and gives best results.

Higher power/speeds do not always give the same quality results but I cut ply or mdf on 60w tubes at around 28 mm/s at 60% power. Running the tube at 100% may not be too good for it but I can't say if that has been proven one way or another!

If you run the machine faster and increase productivity it stands to reason the tube will expire sooner but possibly yield a higher profit than one plodding along. Quality is king in my view so a happy medium production rate with high quality work can yield equal if not more profit than a faster machine chucking out hundreds of cuts an hour... ;)

Over the years I have had the machines I have only had to replace the power supplies once and a bearing on one machine (I do a lot of engraving work) - they are quite sturdy if well looked after. Obviously the tube are disposable and I have accidentally broken more than wearing them out (easy to have a problem with a pump and heat shock the tube or crack it when maintaining :oops: ).

Best
Dave
Using two LS3060's and an ex 3020 user
Please note I am not employed by HPC, any advice or recomendations I give are based on my own experience and are not necessarily the same as HPC's. First point of contact on any hardware issues should be with HPC
GranttEnnis
Posts: 8
Joined: Sun Aug 14, 2016 12:39 pm
Contact:

Re: LS6040 Efficient cutting

Post by GranttEnnis »

Your advice is absolutely golden - thank you!

Oddly, this is all to decide a price for an item. We currently sell engraved acrylic tokens, and we price on materials and time - we know that we can get, on average, about £45/hour product from two machines, which works well with our current set up. Right now, cutting MDF, we're looking at £25 per hour, which is a significant difference; hence the need to make our cut-times more efficient if we want to add MDF to our ranges - which in our industry, would open up a wider possibility of products for us to manufacture.

We believe in quality, so we don't want to fiddle with the cut speeds too much - that's why we're looking at other ways to speed up the cutting, and also learning how to design product with this in mind.

Thanks again for the advice.
Daven
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Re: LS6040 Efficient cutting

Post by Daven »

No problems ;)

Best
Dave
Using two LS3060's and an ex 3020 user
Please note I am not employed by HPC, any advice or recomendations I give are based on my own experience and are not necessarily the same as HPC's. First point of contact on any hardware issues should be with HPC
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