Laser cutting of plastics - Laser cutting and engraving

Laser cutting of plastics is becoming increasingly popular. This is not without any reason! Plastic laser cutting has a number of advantages over traditional processing techniques. Where previously plastic was milled a lot, nowadays you see a significant shift to laser cutting. Laser cutting is fast, accurate and it ensures very little loss of material. With the technical developments that we have undergone in the last 2 years, we can also laser cut more and more plastics. We can also cut ever thicker plastics. Where we could laser cut 6mm thick POMC 2 years ago, nowadays we cut through 16mm thick POMC! 16mm is almost as thick as the 20mm acrylic that we could previously cut.

Growth plastic laser cutting:

Everything that gets attention grows, but everything that grows eventually also gets attention. The growth of plastic laser cutting is because the possibilities are getting wider and because it is cheaper than other techniques. We are of course part of this. For example, you previously asked us whether we could also cut HDPE by laser. At first we had to answer this question doubtfully. In the beginning, we were able to cut through approximately 5mm HDPE laser cutting with the correct settings. Of course we found out after testing it. But because we got more and more demand for other plastics, we also started trying to laser cut more plastics. Laser cutting is a technique that is very widely used in the metal industry and is also well known. The laser cutting of plastic is comparable to the laser cutting of metal. Plastic is of course flammable and it generally behaves differently than metals, but plastic can also be laser cut very nicely. A lot of plastic is used in machine building and equipment construction, plastic that is mostly milled or cut with, for example, water cutters. Both processing methods are excellent methods, but laser cutting is faster and therefore often cheaper. The loss of material is also very small, so that you can laser cut more parts from a sheet than you can mill the parts, for example.

Advantages of plastic laser cutting

Machine building and equipment construction is generally a conventional industry. We (yes I am also part of them) do not switch to other production methods unless we are sure that it is right. I can tell you, plastic laser cutting is growing fast but is growing faster and faster. I expect that within 10 years 60-80% of the 2D shapes will be lasered instead of milling or water cutting. The reason that 100% of the parts will not be lasered has to do with the disadvantages of laser cutting. You can read the 4 biggest disadvantages of plastic laser cutting on our website. First the benefits:

1. Ease of use,

2. Complex shapes possible,

3. Radius-free corners possible,

4. Very little waste,

5. Waste that does arise is recyclable (chips from milling cannot be recycled properly)

6. High production speed,

7. Break-free production because there is no contact between cutting tool and product

The ease of use mainly has to do with setting the machine. With conventional milling you often need a lot of training to understand the machine, the plastic laser cutting machine is relatively easy to use. Of course there are quite a number of points for attention, but after a day of intensive training you can already laser cut plastics independently.

Because the laser beam of the laser cutter is very small, we can easily laser cut complex shapes. Fine gears, for example, are no problem. We can also easily cut out very fine logos or small technical components with small details. We can laser cut thin plastics more finely than, for example, 10mm thick plates. This is due to the heat input so that the plastic can melt if we cut thicker plates in it too thin shapes.

A round tool is always used with a milling cutter. Nowadays there are very fine cutters available, but you always keep a radius in the corners. This is not the case with laser cutting. We can easily cut a square hole (or hole) from a sheet with plastic laser cutting.

The process of laser cutting is a thermal process. This means that we cut through the material with temperature. The plastics we cut transfer from solid to gas phase in one go. So the plastic evaporates. The gases are collected in a filter and virtually no waste is produced. The saw cut is 0.1mm wide. You can of course imagine that in this way you can also produce many more parts from a plate than with milling. Milling also produces a lot of chips and chips are difficult to recycle, because of pollution with other materials/chips. The waste streams from plastic laser cutting often consist of scraps of sheet material, which is easy to recycle.

We cut through the plastic in one go with the laser beam. Milling is a slower and more complex process that takes longer to machine, as well as to set up the machine. This is reflected in the cost price. Higher production speed means fewer hours of labor, and this of course means a lower cost.

With thin materials, such as foils and plastic film layers, breakage occurs regularly during milling. There is also a chance that the foil will be broken with knife cutters. Breakage is harmful because you destroy both the production time and the material. Laser cutting is contactless, so the chance of the foil being torn is very small.

Have any questions about laser cutting your plastic parts? Feel free to contact us.