Laser Cutting on a Honeycomb Table

In an earlier article we discussed two types of table used in a laser cutting machine one of which was a Honeycomb table. Here in this article we take a more detailed look at this type of cutting table.

The honeycomb cell structure is made from what are essentially very thin strips of aluminium that are in some places glued together. This glued section is then extruded, concertina fashion, to form a sheet of honeycomb shaped cell structures.

This honeycomb material is actually designed to be laminated between two sheet materials, for example MDF, where it's used primarily in the construction industry. The resulting 'sandwich' board is very light weight and very strong, however, without this lamination the opposite is true; the honeycomb is incredibly weak.

The idea behind using this honeycomb is to minimise the occurrence of backward laser beam reflection; where the laser beam passes through the material into the honeycomb cell there is a void that allows the beam to pass well out of focus and so not reflect back into the material.

In some respect this works and a honeycomb table can be good for cutting non-rigid materials such as laser cutting textiles or when the requirement is to laser cut very small parts, however, because of the weakness of the structure it deteriorates very fast. It is also impossible to clean this type of table and problems occur when placing heavy materials upon it and/or when using extraction from below the material.

Therefore, this type of cutting table is truly a consumable item and frequent replacement can be costly over time.

Common faults with a honeycomb are that the aluminium sheet deforms, which actually can cause the very backward reflection that this type of table is trying to avoid. When processing heavy material, such as laser cutting acrylic, it can have a tendency to sag, casing for beam defocus. Once dirty it can cause debris to stick to new materials and using it with higher power CO2 lasers can actually cause the cell structure to separate.

Furthermore, there are limitations with regard to the overall size of a honeycomb cutting table.

In short using a honeycomb cutting table often has more limitations than benefits so unless it is your only available option or your application is one of the few where a honeycomb table works well it is far better to use a lamella type table when laser cutting sheet materials.

At Lotus Laser Systems we manufacture a wide range laser, marking and engraving solutions with many types of cutting table. Our experts would be happy to advise you which configuration would suit your application best.