Category: Manufacturing & Engineering

The Basics in Catering Equipment Repairs and Maintenance

Post author By Claudia Webb
Post date May 30, 2021

Your cooking tools are probably the essential point inside your dining establishment. One unexpected failing could destroy an eventful supper solution. Even more, a kitchen area fire can put you sedentary for days and even weeks.

To maintain the equipment and keep the business operational, complying with five factors are among the essential regular upkeep needs in the kitchen. The very best techniques are listed here.

Standard Catering Equipment Repairs and Upkeep Requirements

1. Duct and Air Vent Hood Cleaning

To get rid of oil accumulated from grease-laden vapors, the air vent hood, and air duct need to be cleaned up by a capable contractor at the very least once in six months. A professional hood cleaning service should do this service. Such a solution might require it to be done more regularly, but every 6 months is for most commercial kitchen areas. In between resolution dates, the team could wipe down the parts of the hood to a minimum to keep it clean.

2. Grease Filter Cleansing

Oil filters gather grease as grease-laden vapors move up right to the hood, lowering the grease that takes a trip straight into the air duct. Although this is wonderful in enhancing the amount of time, it indicates that the oil filters should be cleaned on a regular basis.

A common oil filter cleaning interval is once every week, yet they might be done frequently if you do hefty oil cooking. Many restaurants clean up the filters every night. This is a superb method to decrease fire dangers.

3. Deep Fryer Evaluation

A deep fat fryer is among the best fire hazards in the majority of industrial cooking zones. The deep fat fryer needs to be cleaned and kept in accordance with the maker’s referrals, which includes regular cleaning of the cupboard by your personnel. Similarly, the fryer needs to be checked by a professional business food preparation appliance professional a minimum of every twelve months when the unit has been in solution for five years. An inspection includes items that are hard to reach and might be possibly harmful to inexperienced employees.

4. Floor Upkeep

Most people don’t consider their kitchen area flooring as part of the equipment; however, it is the apparatus that gets extra routine use than other parts of the cooking area. Inappropriate flooring treatment can lead to a slip and autumn that could bring your kitchen’s performance to a halt or leave you short-staffed, and cut into the bottom line. Floors ought to be cleaned up routinely with an excellent cleaner developed for industrial kitchen floorings.

In an industrial kitchen area, catering equipment repairs are a must to keep them on top working to ensure food quality and consistency. It is important for the company. Because of this, ensuring you have the ideal kitchen area equipment in place, which is looked after correctly, is essential.

Tags catering equipment, commercial kitchen, oil filter

Manufacturing & Engineering

3D Printer Brisbane: Common Applications in Healthcare

Post author By Claudia Webb
Post date December 31, 2020

The clinical sector is the most sophisticated in how new therapies and procedures have been created. As well as the modern tools that drive all this ahead. There has been no shortage of miracles, and that continues to occur. Now, 3D printing in health care is coming, too.

Among how the clinical market has been enhanced and improved is using 3D printers. Three-dimensional printing in medical care makes it feasible for physicians to supply people with a new type of treatment in various means. 3D printing is utilized to develop new surgical drills and cutting overviews, prosthetics, and the formation of patient-specific reproductions of organs, bones, and blood vessels.

Current advancements of 3D printing in medical care have brought about lighter, healthier, and more secure items, reduced lead times, and lower expenses. Personalized components can be customized to every individual. This boosts individuals’ understanding by medical experts and enhances client convenience degrees by permitting communication with products designed specifically for their makeup.

Usual Applications of 3D Printer Brisbane in Healthcare

Learning

While the emphasis has been on 3D printing medical gadgets and implants gadgets made use of by individuals, among the largest application areas is the construction of anatomical replicas. Physicians are currently using designs produced by a 3D printer Brisbane from individual scan information to improve the analysis of ailments, clear up therapy decisions, strategy, and, in many cases, even practice picking surgical treatments in advance of the actual treatments.

The models enable medical professionals to understand individual composition that is hard to envision, especially when utilizing minimally invasive strategies. Models additionally assist in specifically sizing clinical devices. Doctors could also use the versions to describe a forthcoming medical process to patients and their families and connect the surgical methods to their associates.

Surgical Tools

Doctors make use of devices to assist in a surgical procedure. These were traditionally constructed from titanium or lightweight aluminum. With 3D printing in medical care, physicians can produce tools that precisely adhere to a person’s distinct anatomy. 3D published tools are utilized to make the positioning of restorative therapies (screws, plates, and implants) a lot more precise, leading to far better postoperative findings. The FDM 3D printing modern technology is ideal for repetitive, low-cost prototyping to optimize a tool’s layout.

Prosthetics

Substitute or changes could be time consuming and pricey. Since prosthetics are such personal things, each one must be custom-made or fit to the wearer’s requirements. 3D printing altered all this and is currently regularly to create individual specific prosthetics components that match completely with the user’s makeup.

Indeed, technology keeps on improving and the good news is, the healthcare industry is greatly benefiting from such technologies.

Tags FDM 3D printing modern technology, healthcare, prosthetic

Manufacturing & Engineering

What We Need to Know About Geothermal Drilling Rigs?

Post author By Claudia Webb
Post date December 1, 2020

To see to it that the use of a large number of geotechnical construction techniques is successful, it’s a must to have efficient and safe drilling of boreholes regardless of the existing ground conditions you may be working on. Things can go for the worse if you will make use of inappropriate methods and means or the wrong kind of geothermal drilling rigs, particularly the structural conditions of ground properties by which the construction method is intending to address or rectify.

There are a handful of specialty geotechnical construction processes that necessitates hole drilling via rock or overburden. Such construction processes include anchoring, grouting, soil nailing, micro piling, and ground freezing. Typically, these holes come in 3 to 12 inches in diameter. It is also very scarce to find them come more than 200 feet deep.

These holes would also vary in their inclination. Some are vertically upwards while others would be seen as vertically downwards. Most holes would be seen in freezing, micro piling, and grouting within 30 degrees of vertical. While rock masses are naturally variable with respect to their structure, overburden, and strength – coming from the drilling point of view – this would usually present far greater difficulties and challenges to any drilling contractor.

Overburden is often seen as a non-lithified material. Nature itself forms or deposits them. There are instances also that humans create them. These materials could range from loose and soft down to something hard and dense. They can also come as something dry or saturated.

Overburdens can also contain artificial or atypical horizons or inclusions. This scenario may present a problem in terms of ground penetration. For instance, deep foundations in soils or boulders as well as shallow fill foundations and utility trenches. These conditions will be presenting the contractor with a good amount of challenge to work on, who obviously for financial reasons, are much more interested in drilling the needed holes as quickly as possible.

However, specific projects may necessitate performance requirements or significant restrictions.

Drilling systems are effective when they can deliver straight and continuous penetration in different kinds of ground soil. This ground soil being worked on could range from something extremely hard to something very soft.

It is also of utmost importance that your geothermal drilling rigs can provide you with a constant diameter from which the drilling debris can be taken. Most of the time this is consistent with what is required by the specialty construction process that it is serving. They will make use of the right amounts of rotary speed, thrust, torque, and percussive effort to reach their target in the most possible economical way.

Also, drilling rigs should be enhancing the level of efficiency of the used flushing medium. As for the ground conditions, it should determine the cost notwithstanding, even if regional experience and historical bias will have a strong impact on the choice. The technique to be used can be identified by the application.

It is also crucial that the method you will employ is aligned with the current existing project environmental restraints such as vibrations, noise, flush control, and disposal. The hole itself should be utilized only for the purpose it is intended to be used on, like the anchor tendon installation, as soon as possible right after drilling work is done. This measure will help in minimizing any time-dependent factors that induce deterioration of its walls.

Tags drill techniques, drilling rigs for sale, geothermal

Manufacturing & Engineering

How to Tell If Moving to Resin 3D Printing Sydney Makes Sense?

Post author By Claudia Webb
Post date November 20, 2020

The resin-based 3D printing Sydney industry is utilizing digital light processing techniques or DLP, although stereolithography or SLA is increasingly becoming more common, too. More importantly, it is getting cheaper by the day, making it a more practical option for many industries and businesses alike.

The aesthetic side of resin prints is most of the time fantastic, hence they have gained good traction in almost every industry and became an in-demand option for industrial printing. So, when is it the right thing for us to say that moving to these cheap resin 3D printing machines make sense? To get to the bottom of this question, we need to ponder on the following points:

The output or the work done by 3D resin printers, alongside the printing process itself, is not at all comparable to the filament-type printing systems. Some important aspects such as pre-processing work, design considerations, and the post-processing side are all very distinct from each other.

Resin 3D printing takes on a different workflow instead. It brings along some consumables and hidden costs that are beyond the resin refills cost. Things may not be like how they used to be where FDM or fused deposition modeling printers were a couple of years ago at a time that we were so astounded with the quality that one printer could bring for about $200. Without a doubt, this is now far more accessible to every one of us than ever before.

3D resin printing will make sense when you have any of the following conditions.

Build volume will likely constrict you to work only on relatively small-sized objects.
Handling, preparation, and maintenance can be shambolic of sorts. It may even necessitate you to make use of gloves. And since some resin exudes fumes, proper and good ventilation in your workspace is a must.
Consumables are not confined to just alcohol (to be used for part washing) and the resin. The tank build surface needs to have a replacement from time to time. If you are doing it out of passion or hobby, it is a thin plastic film very much comparable to that of the skin of a drum.
The resin setup and cleanup work must be carried out no matter what the size of the project is. It is pretty much more practical to carry out your 3D printing jobs in batches as opposed to just one-offs, which most of the time are few and far between.
One downside to resin material is they tend to have a shorter or limited amount of shelf life. So, therefore, if you are planning to make a stock of your resin in your build tank, never think of doing so. Otherwise, you are running the risk of having it expire on you. Therefore, you need to consume it sooner rather than at a later time.
Resin printing comes with a higher post-processing load. This comes in the form of additional curing work, part washing, and support removal.

They all signify that resin printing comes with several hidden costs beyond the price of a bottle of resin and the 3D printing Sydney machine itself. If you don’t find them as something you should object to and you think they are pretty much acceptable for you, then there is nothing to stop you from taking advantage of the economic gains that come with desktop resin printing.

You can commence your experimenting as soon as you want. Since the resulting prints are likely going to come out well, the odds that they will look awesome is high.

Just bear this thing in mind. There is no chance that your filament-based printer machine should be taking the place of your resin printer or vice versa. Both printing systems are distinct from each other, therefore they are good at different things.

Tags FDM 3D printing modern technology, printing system, resin

Manufacturing & Engineering

Flammable liquid cabinet: Your Safety Solution

Post author By Claudia Webb
Post date November 1, 2020

Heavy-duty security storage cabinets are considered to be the very first type of protection against fires, contamination, and spills. As the name indicates, these cabinets’ safely’ shop dangerous chemicals, flammables, and corrosives. You will find numerous regulations around secure storage.

Storage cabinets provide a safe, EPA friendly method for storing potentially dangerous chemical substances. This includes combustibles, corrosives, flammables, and pesticides. Instead of leaving these products out- vulnerable to mishaps – always store them in a safe cabinet.

Unlike regular versions, professional-class storage devices can withstand force, heat, and pressure. This guarantees that they could guard the substance contents you intend to store inside.

However, with different types of flammable liquid cabinet available today, how can you tell which person to choose? Right here, we outline several vital elements to think about prior to having the investment. Utilize this as your guide as you choose the cabinet that is ideal for the needs.

Options for Flammable Liquid Cabinet

Flammable Storage

Flammable liquid storage space cabinets must have an 18-gauge steel structure for optimum fire resistance. These generally are yellowish. Various explosive cabinet size and composition choices are obtainable, from four to ninety-gallon capacity. Choose between the manual door or perhaps self-closing doors.

Ink and Paint Storage

This is the perfect resolution to home your combustible fluid as well as aerosol cans. The colors can either be yellow or red powder coat steel. They are available in several configurations and sizes, with or perhaps with no self-closing doors. Adaptable level shelves help optimize space and set up ink sales or maybe paint cans. On the other hand, in places with moisture worries, choose a tower medicine cabinet with legs for much better ventilation.

Corrosives and Acid storage

Caustic and acid security cabinets provide better endurance to spills and chemical vapors. Made of sturdy steel or maybe polyethylene, these synthetic cabinets are generally pink. They are available in several sizes, including choices that fit beneath countertops, benchtops, and lab workbenches—select cabinets with poly building for ambitious sulfuric, hydrochloric, or nitric acids. Never shop nitric as well as sulfuric acid in the identical box unit.

Pesticide Storage

This type holds poisonous pesticides as well as insecticide chemicals. They are usually green and constructed using industrial steel with either self or manual closing doors. Corrosion-resistant polyethylene cabinets help maintain synthetic storage space cabinets in good form. This style safety drawer is an excellent choice for agricultural businesses storing synthetic poisons.

Drum storage

These cabinets are ideal for different thirty or maybe fifty-gallon flammable or perhaps dangerous materials. The standard color is yellowish for combustible hazard distinction.

Choose between vertical or horizontal storage devices, with or perhaps with no self-closing doors.

Hazmat drum models include roller conveyors for quick material handling.

Which one should you pick?

The supplies utilized in the building of storage cabinets could change based on their planned chemical. Nevertheless, polyethylene and stainless steel are the most popular substances for professional-quality cabinets. These provide a better amount of power, long-lasting, and better durability. These attributes are crucial in storing potentially dangerous chemical substances.

Tags EPA, heavy storage cabinets, pesticide storage

Manufacturing & Engineering

What is the Future of Drill Rig Companies?

Post author By Claudia Webb
Post date October 14, 2020

The world today is now enjoying the service of around 270 offshore gas and oil drill rig companies.

Most of them that hold their operations in shallower waters are run either by jack-up rigs or fixed rigs. On the other hand, those that are run in water that is at least 500 feet deep usually have subsea or floating rigs, instead.

With respect to the history of a rig drilling industry, drilling and digging into the earth past its surface is undeniably a capital, labor, and energy-intensive activity. However, we are seeing now a silver lining on this as things are about to change. For instance, typical scenarios on land sites based on solar or wind to power rigs have now commenced to take off.

Drill rig companies that now operate in the Gulf of Mexico and the North Sea are manned by at least 50 to 200 people, depending on how big or small the rig is.

However, these numbers are anticipated to take a plunge with the impending application of artificial intelligence technology or A.I. since rig sites that are located in deep-sea waters are often the preserve of A.I.-run robots. These robots though are being manned by humans who are stationed in onshore control centers.

At present, the cost for offshore rigs would be averaging around US$650m. This amount is 20 times higher when compared to the land rig average cost. But rig design industrialization and production is likely going to pull down the costs in the coming years.

Optimizing Efficiency with New Technology

There is no other direction now for drilling but to become even more efficient. Cloud computing, in conjunction with big data analysis software, is creating beautiful changes to how we collect, analyze, and monitor collected drilling data.

When it comes to obtaining balance in fluid pressures, and accurate measurement of hydraulic, mechanical, and engineering drilling data is crucial. They are also essentially important in optimizing the drilling process as well as for the maintenance of a safe operating environment.

The Colorado School of Mines suggested that when 2050 comes our current used traditional drilling solutions will be replaced by chemical industrial lasers. Right now, we have to take major strides before this technology could even become commercially competitive with traditional drilling methods.

Certainly, drill rig companies working in fields that currently have a yield of less than 10% can significantly improve by implementing the use of lasers.

As of this writing Total’s Alwyn platform is being tested out by AI-enabled robots. These AI-equipped robots are sophisticated in terms of technology they use.

They are also equipped with sensors that will allow them to understand whatever it is that is transpiring to their immediate environment, whereas algorithms will make it possible for them to act, plan and interact with their environment and with humans.

As for other robots, they carry out visual inspections. They can also identify leaks in gas as part of the US$47.5m ORCA program or Offshore Robotics for Certification of Assets.

The said program is geared towards the development of autonomous and semi-autonomous robots (AI-enabled) that can repair, inspect, and certify and maintain offshore-energy facilities. In the not so distant future, this is likely to become the norm, the new standard.

But right now, the prospect of having an offshore industry that is fully automated is such a big risk, because artificial intelligence is practically still in its infancy stage. Much like how Phillips puts it, “AI learning is an imposing challenge, especially when the unfolding of relevant events is unpredictable or undeterminable.

Tags drilling rigs for sale, drilling technique, oil mining

E-Commerce Manufacturing & Engineering

What Makes Fire Cabinets Secure?

Post author By Claudia Webb
Post date July 31, 2020

In most businesses establishments fireproof cabinets play a crucial role. This is primarily due to their extremely secure features. Though most business offices are wanting to do paperless transactions, as well as rely on digitized information nowadays, nobody may totally do away with documents. Hence a fireproof cabinet is a must have in business companies and is crucial in disaster management.

Fire Cabinets for your Security

Some businesses make the error of saving important contracts, confidential business captures, deeds, financial papers, etc. in a typical filing cabinet. Though the simple truth is that these cabinets will just prevent unauthorized access. They will also enable you to store your precious files in an organized way. Nevertheless, they will not guard the belongings of yours in the eventuality of a fire mishap. In case you invest in it the documents of yours will be secure and safe since they are tested and created for their fireproof security.

Fireproof Cabinets

We have previously stated that a fireproof cabinet is the very first step towards fire security. This is since they can resist harm because of fire for up to two hours.

Let us see what goes on when you save papers in a typical box. Paper gets ignited at top compression. The heat inside a typical cabinet is going to rise quickly as steel is a great conductor of heat. As a result, even if the drawer is not harmed during a fire outbreak, the paper’s contents inside it is going to be destroyed. On the other hand, a normal fireproof box is going to have a double walled metal body. And, the hollow room will be loaded with a distinctive fire-resistant compound. The compound is going to have a hydrate like gypsum or perhaps alum that when warmed releases water vapor.

Several of this water vapor is channeled into the inside of the safe to produce a stress seal against the external heating of the fire as well as to manage the internal heat. The top, returned, foundation and the front side of the door manage the pressure/humidity quantities. This enables several of the vapor to disperse into the fire. These features bolster the fire opposition of the secure. During a fire outbreak these attributes are going to guarantee that all gaps are sealed.

Many fireproof medicine cabinets also come with quality that is high locking bolts, digital tresses, and picky draw by draw access controls. Each drawer is individually shielded for fireproof filing. Hence the documents will be protected even when a drawer is still left open during a fire outbreak. In an ordinary box these characteristics are missing.

You are going to find that the advantages of getting a fireproof box outweigh the price factor while you have a fire risk assessment into account. The business of yours can work successfully despite a fire mishap in case you spend in a fireproof box.

Fire cabinets can shield files, CDs along with other useful possessions for an extended period not just during a fire breakout, but additionally during natural disasters like an earthquake as well as flood.

An extra benefit is they are multifunctional. It can guard anything from jeweler and documents, to antiques, CDs, money as well as costly art works, and guns! They could withstand tampering from the exterior to a significant extent, also.

Tags fire safety, safety equipment

Manufacturing & Engineering

3D Scanner: A Must-Have in Dental Practices

Post author By Claudia Webb
Post date July 9, 2020

The initiative to make use of CAD/CAM technologies in dentistry was conceptualized by Francois Duret in the 1970’s with the aim of minimizing practitioner’s job flow. During the last four years, the idea has been vigorously tuned and enhanced to expose a range of advantages that offset those related to standard techniques, at last achieving goals.

Although the promoted version has been sluggish, intense item refinements have created the wait worthy, with three crucial areas of advancements in a 3D scanner.

3D Scanner Advantages

Ease of use

Companies have been extremely responsive to industry needs over the past years, producing products which cater to different sectors within the marketplace rather than “one item to satisfy all of your needs”. It has provided clinicians the chance to choose systems suitable to the practice of theirs and tastes increasing general ease of usage. The obvious segmentation hasn’t just introduced a good assortment of items to the industry but has created items customized to the user’s requirements, technological level and recently, the budgets of theirs. Basically, specialized software is currently available for: implantology, diagnosis, archiving, and visualization purposes in comparison to the prior focus on individual restorations.

In reaction to promote development and greater product accessibility, vendors are not attempting to secure customers in their methods to avoid cross program integration. Instead, open architecture methods are more common on the market, allowing interchangeability and flexibility of current products and software.

Accuracy

Scanners no longer need clinicians to put the fujitsu scansnap s1500 on the dentition, as well as take several pictures of the tooth. Instead, the procedure is more or perhaps less flawless and provides digital settings that are 1:1 with life models that are real at a tiny proportion of the moment and energy related to standard techniques. The enhanced accuracy makes it not possible to avoid details that are important, in turn providing a wide range of possibilities for dentists in sectors like analysis and treatment development. In addition, this is more likely to enable dentists to incorporate scans into their people’s electronic records, to allow easier transmission, access and sharing of information anywhere in the earth at a touch of a switch.

Cost

From the analysis gathered, cost was recognized as a crucial screen respondent thinking about the action in the direction of digital dentistry. Alternatively, as scanners have gotten further drive in the industry, makers have worked to find strategies of keeping scanning quality whilst decreasing the total costs for the purchaser. It has led to a descending pressure on price, possibly reducing one of the crucial obstacles to adaptation as well as permitting the dental society to feat the assortment of chances created by tooth scanners.

The changing focus from merchandise to consumer centric creation has created a significant change in the digital dentistry market. The exciting possibilities created by evolution has created excellent prospects for dentist’s workflows and business models and is unquestionably one of their secrets of a cutthroat advantage.

Tags product accessibility, scanning, technology

Manufacturing & Engineering

The Difference that Waterjet Makes According to Water Jet Machine Manufacturers

Post author By Claudia Webb
Post date May 13, 2020

According to various water jet machine manufacturers, many people are a bit confused when it comes to choosing between waterjet, plasma and laser. Laser is reputed for its high level of precision as opposed to plasma and waterjet, but a waterjet system is more energy efficient when used to work on aluminum sheets and steel.

Each of the above mentioned material cutting systems makes use of a different material for them to cut through an object, and with that they also come with their own array advantages and disadvantages. So, truly this can be considered as a major decision considering the factors to look into; the system efficiency, running costs, initial outlay, your bottom line impact and finally, the staff impact.

Giving each of these methods a close-up look will help us gain more insight regarding the general benefits they offer, as well as the possible drawback that they have. Hence, you are able to make an informed choice. Carry on reading the rest of this content, and you’ll find out later which cutting system is best suited for your needs.

Water Jet Machine Manufacturers Defining Waterjet Technology

Waterjet material cutting method is a qualified cold cutting process. This cutting system is making use of a specialized tool or device together with the stream of an ultra high-pressure water. In order to further intensify its cutting potency, the water itself can be mixed with an abrasive mineral substance with respect on the material you are intending to cut through.

Things It Can Cut

Basically, waterjet cutting Melbourne can handle cutting through almost anything; titanium, stainless steel, tool steel, aluminum, granite, ceramics, armour plate and a range of materials known sensitive to high temperatures. You can make it cut out an object to almost any imaginable shape and form you want it to with high level of precision with a burr-free edge.

Plasma Cutting

Plasma cutting systems can be taken advantage of when handling projects that involve cutting of metals such as aluminum, copper, and stainless steel, regardless if they are ferrous or nonferrous metals. The only exception, so far, with this material cutting system is wood and plastic. You can never cut materials of these types with a plasma cutter. But compared to laser cutting systems, plasma is much faster in terms of cutting speed for over 3mm thickness.

There is one minor drawback with the plasma cutting system, though. Typically, it will leave 4-6 degree bevel on the edge cut. This can be easily noticed on thicker pieces.

Laser Cutting

When all that you care about is accuracy and efficiency, laser cutting systems got you covered on that. These pieces of equipment require a very minimal amount of human intervention. Usually human hands may be required only for inspections, repairs, and programming parts.

It is very scarce that accidents and injuries happen when there is an ongoing laser cutting job. However, getting too close or being in direct contact to the laser itself will result in burns – one can never be too careful on this.

It is not the laser cutting machine that requires only minimal human intervention, mainly for programming, inspections and repairs. Therefore, the frequency of injuries and accidents is minimal, although too close contact with the laser can cause burns. Laser cutting of materials such as plastics can cause gas emissions when exposed to heat, which means that a well-ventilated room is vital as the gases can be harmful and toxic.

Laser cutting systems are not highly recommended when processing/cutting plastic-based materials. Doing so runs the risk of creating noxious gas emissions and fumes when they are exposed to extreme heat. If ever you need to do so, you need to carry it out in a well-ventilated space or room. Or better yet, do it in an open space area to minimize the risk of inhaling possible toxic gases that it will produce.

Our Takeaway on Waterjet Cutting

From the very mouth of water jet machine manufacturers themselves, they often say that the type of material subject for cutting will have a direct influence on the amount of power that it will likely consume.

But to give you an idea here, a 1500-watt laser cutter will require 20-40 kw electrical power, a 300 amp plasma cutting machine would require 55 kw electrical power whereas a waterjet system would be needing only 22-35 kw.

Tags cutting system, water jet machine manufacturers

Manufacturing & Engineering

Choosing Between a Plasma Cutting Table and Laser Cutting Table

Post author By Claudia Webb
Post date April 13, 2020

A top of the line laser and plasma cutting table will easily and seamlessly help you in making a particular CAD or CAM-designed part. But the challenge will come when you need to pick one and you know nothing or not being aware of the banes and boons that each one of them comes with. Do you want to know the right option to use for your project? It would be difficult to tell without having any hands-on experience.

Plasma Cutting Tables

Plasmacam technology has been around for quite some time now, but the use of plasma technology started to become widely known around the early part of the 1970s up until the last quarter of the 1980s. However, this material cutting method got fully refined only recently.

The plasma cutting systems of those early days were somehow inefficient and flawed. They actually leave behind chips and scars on cut materials and metals. Hence, due to these imperfections, they can’t be taken advantage of for precise applications.

Today, what we have is a more refined plasma technology, and we are attributing the improvements to the different milestones that it had gone through in the past. As of this writing, there are millions of metal fabrication and manufacturing firms that are taking advantage of this state-of-the-art material cutting method to address their material cutting and process requirements.

This technology, by far, is the most preferred and the best method to use when cutting conductive metals like aluminum and stainless steel. Below are a few of the banes and boons on the use of plasma cutter.

Advantages

Low operating cost

This type of material cutting method consumes less amount of energy when compared to laser cutting. This signifies that the plasma cutter operating cost is way lower than laser cutting technology.

Fast Rate of Production

One of the primary reasons why plasma cutting technique is one of the most preferred material cutting methods nowadays by various industries can be attributed to its fast production rate. The use of this technology is most helpful when you are working with a project that involves the use of thick materials, which slows down laser cutters.

Cuts through thick materials

As indicated above, plasma cutting technology allows you to handle cutting of relatively thick materials to which laser cutting technology and many other techniques fall short in.

Disadvantages

Not highly recommended for precision cutting. Using plasma jets in cutting materials may not deliver the level of accuracy that laser cutting machines can easily provide. This should not be considered as a major problem for low-tolerance applications.
Cut materials may necessitate some level of refinement. This material cutting method may make use of debris or dross, to help it adhere to the cut material’s side and bottom. Hence, requiring the cut material to undergo some needed refinement or polishing.
May be used for cut conductive metals. Plasma cutting machines will cut if you make them react to a conductive material for it to deliver its work. This signifies this cutting method can only handle the cutting of conductive metals, typically aluminum and steel.

Laser Cutting Tables

Laser cutting machines are utilizing high-powered CO2 lasers in cutting various types of materials and metals. This technology has been used for several decades, and up to this day remains a good alternative among select fabricating shops and manufacturing companies that require nothing less but increased flexibility in their processes.

Below are some of the pros and cons of laser cutting tables over plasma cutting technology.

Advantages

Cuts through a wide spectrum of materials. This material cutting method can handle cutting of metals, plastics, some fabrics and wood. Such qualities are making this cutting technique flexible for many different kinds of projects.

High level of precision and accuracy. As opposed to plasma cutting machines, laser cutters offer users precise and highly accurate output, even though they tend to leave out heat scars or marring on the material.

Cons:

Not being able to cut through reflective materials like copper since laser beams will just get deflected away.
Slower rate of production. Compared to plasma, laser cutters are slower for many different applications in most metal fabrication shops.
Difficulty in cutting thick materials. If the material subject for cutting is about a few millimeters in thickness, laser cutting machines will have a certain level of difficulty in cutting through it.

Based from above, if you will work on a project that involves the use of highly-conductive thick metals, plasma cutting method would be the most viable choice. It works to your advantage if it is going to be a high volume project. On the contrary, if precision and versatility is a top priority in your project, the use of a laser cutting table is a must. Consider making your own assessment about these two methods of cutting. By that measure, you’d be able to see which one to use, if it is a laser cutting table or a plasma cutting table.