Why To Choose A Galvo Laser For Cutting

For some laser cutting applications the material is in a roll format. There are also circumstances where high levels of detail need to be cut very quickly to thin sheet materials, such as paper or card.

In such circumstances no other form of mechanical beam delivery is as fast as that delivered by a galvo beam deflection unit. Speed of cut is vital to the commercial viability of most jobs and in many cases if the cutting is very fast the material shows less adverse reaction to the heat.

For simple label cutting applications where the part is small (within 150x150mm) a standard set-up will likely suffice, however, where it is important to hold a smaller focal point and/or where it is required to mark beyond the work area of a conventional galvo machine a special design system is required and it is called a Dynamic Focus Galvo Laser (DFGL) or sometimes a 3d scanner.

Such a specialist machine incorporates an optical component in front of the XY beam deflection mirrors, which adjusts the convergence/divergence of the beam to provide for a consistent focal point over an area of up to 800x600mm.

These machines can cut materials held static (no part movement) or ‘on the fly’; where the material is continuously moving during the laser cutting process.

Examples of use would be for laser cut greeting cards, laser cut packaging or laser cut labels and other printed materials to name but a few.

With these machines the cutting speed is incredibly fast, often up to 10m/sec so it is required to use a laser source measured in several hundreds of watts; typically 200w or 400w.

While the purchase price of these kinds of laser can be perceived as being very high, often x2 to x3 the price of a typical plotter laser alternative, the production speeds can be x10, x20 or even faster.

By comparison, a decent galvo laser will often cut a job in mere seconds where an alternative plotter would take several minutes or more to perform the same task.

It is therefore in many cases far cheaper to use a single, higher performing galvo machine rather than a bank of plotter lasers as well as the fact that often, using a galvo laser is the only way to cut some jobs in an economically viable way.