Comparison of application scope
Laser cutting machine has a wide range of applications, whether metal or non-metal, can be cut. CO2 laser cutting machine can be used to cut non-metal, such as cloth, leather, etc., and optical fiber laser cutting machine can be used to cut metal. Plate deformation is small.
Water cutting belongs to cold cutting, with no thermal deformation and good cutting surface quality. It does not need secondary processing, and it is easy to carry out secondary processing if necessary. Water cutting can punch and cut any material, with fast cutting speed and flexible processing size.
Plasma cutting machine can be used for cutting stainless steel, aluminum, copper, cast iron, carbon steel and other metal materials. Plasma cutting has obvious thermal effect, low precision, and it is not easy to carry out secondary processing on the cutting surface.
Wire cutting can only cut conductive materials, and cutting coolant is required during the cutting process, so it is impossible to cut materials that are not conductive, afraid of water, afraid of cutting coolant pollution, such as paper and leather.
Comparison of cutting thickness
The industrial application of laser cutting carbon steel is generally less than 20mm. The cutting capacity is generally less than 40mm. The industrial application of stainless steel is generally below 16mm, and the cutting capacity is generally below 25mm. And with the increase of workpiece thickness, the cutting speed decreases significantly.
The thickness of water cutting can be very thick, 0.8-100mm, or even thicker materials.
The plasma cutting thickness is 0-120mm, and the best cutting quality range is about 20mm. The plasma system has the highest cost performance.
The thickness of wire cutting is generally 40 ~ 60mm, and the maximum thickness can reach 600mm.
Cutting speed comparison
The 2mm thick low-carbon steel plate is cut with a 1200W laser, and the cutting speed can reach 600cm/min; Cutting 5mm thick polypropylene resin board, the cutting speed can reach 1200cm / min. The cutting efficiency of WEDM is generally 20 ~ 60 mm2 / min, up to 300 mm2 / min; Obviously, laser cutting is fast and can be used for mass production.
Water cutting speed is quite slow, which is not suitable for mass production.
Plasma cutting has slow cutting speed and low relative accuracy, which is more suitable for cutting thick plates, but the end face is inclined.
For metal processing, wire cutting has higher accuracy, but the speed is very slow. Sometimes it needs other methods to pierce and thread in order to cut, and the cutting size is greatly limited.
Comparison of cutting accuracy
The laser cutting incision is thin and narrow, both sides of the cutting seam are parallel and perpendicular to the surface, and the dimensional accuracy of the cutting parts can reach ± 0.2mm.
Plasma can reach within 1mm.
Water cutting will not produce thermal deformation, and the accuracy is ± 0.1mm. If the dynamic water cutting machine is used, the cutting accuracy can be improved, and the cutting accuracy can reach ± 0.02mm, eliminating the cutting slope.
The machining accuracy of WEDM is generally ± 0.01 ~ ± 0.02mm, up to ± 0.004mm.
Slit width comparison
Laser cutting is more precise than plasma cutting, and the cutting seam is small, about 0.5mm.
Plasma cutting seam is larger than laser cutting, about 1-2mm.
The cutting seam of water cutting is about 10% larger than the diameter of the cutter tube, generally 0.8-1.2mm. As the diameter of the sand knife tube is flared, the incision becomes larger.
The cutting seam width of wire cutting is the smallest, generally about 0.1-0.2mm.
Comparison of cutting surface quality
The surface roughness of laser cutting is not as good as that of water cutting. The thicker the material, the more obvious it is.
Water cutting will not change the texture of the material around the cutting seam (laser belongs to thermal cutting, which will change the texture around the cutting area).
Production input cost comparison
1) Laser cutting machines for different purposes have different prices. Cheap ones such as carbon dioxide laser cutting machines are only twenty or thirty thousand, and expensive ones such as 1000W fiber laser cutting machines are now more than one million. Laser cutting has no consumables, but the equipment investment cost is the highest among all cutting methods, and it is not a little higher, and the use and maintenance cost is also quite high.
2) Plasma cutting machine is much cheaper than laser cutting machine. According to the power and brand of plasma cutting machine, the price varies, and the use cost is high. Basically, as long as it can cut conductive materials.
3) The cost of water cutting equipment is second only to laser cutting, with high energy consumption, high use and maintenance costs, and the cutting speed is not as fast as plasma. Because all abrasives are disposable, they are discharged into nature after being used once, so the environmental pollution is also relatively serious.
4) Wire cutting is generally about tens of thousands of pieces. But wire cutting has consumables, such as molybdenum wire, cutting coolant, etc. There are two kinds of wires commonly used in wire cutting. One is molybdenum wire (molybdenum is precious), which is used for fast wire walking equipment. The advantage is that molybdenum wire can be reused many times; The other is to use copper wire (which is much cheaper than molybdenum wire anyway) for wire walking equipment. The disadvantage is that copper wire can only be used once. In addition, the fast wire walking machine is far cheaper than the slow wire walking machine. The price of a slow wire walking machine is equal to 5 or 6 fast wires.