Laser cutting speed vs. Web speed
Today’s laser cutting systems are faster for a variety of reasons. One is that higher-powered lasers that cut faster are more affordable, such that most users of laser cutting technology today opt for 200-watt+ systems. Secondly, the more sophisticated algorithms used in today’s better quality laser cutting machines are able to shave milliseconds off of each cutting operation, which cumulatively result in faster cutting speeds. The third and most important reason why the better quality laser cutting machines of today are faster is that they are able to better optimize the cutting sequence resulting in much faster web speeds.
In non-optimized cutting, the cutting path follows the lines of how the vector drawn image was first created in Solidworks or equivalent software. This non-optimized cutting sequence is so slow that the web would generally only be able to advance intermittently.
Today’s better system show a significant improvement in web speed that is done automatically by the sophisticated algorithms in the control software, for an improved web speed that is determined during the setup of the job, before it is run. The software can tell the operator whether it is best to cut the geometry as a single image, two images, four, etc. This better laser cutting technology can seamlessly stitch these multiple images together to maximize web speed or to allow for cutting a design with dimensions longer than the width of the laser cutter’s working field.
Thus, it is important to not be confused by various manufacturers’ claims on cutting speeds, as this is not particularly relevant to the actual web speed in most applications, which is the all important consideration in actual production. In fact, optimizing for cutting speed alone can actually result in slower web speeds and buyers of laser cutting systems are well-advised to ignore manufacturers’ claims re: cutting speeds and instead focus in on demonstrations of the ability of the system software to optimize for web speed.