Installing a laser blanking system at your facility provides you with the flexibility to quickly react to changes in production and increase the quality of your blanks. With a LaserCoil solution, you can process a variety of coil materials and cut shapes from complex body side outers to simple chevron and scroll cuts without the need for hard tooling. By laser cutting blanks instead of traditional stamping processes, companies can achieve yield rates of up to 100,000 pieces. Imagine the time and cost savings you can achieve by not producing stamping dies.
Coil-fed laser blanking systems can process a wide variety of coil materials, including aluminum, mild steel, high-strength steels, and other materials with thicknesses ranging from 0.5 to 3.5mm and up to 2.1m wide coil at any length.
Since 2008, LaserCoil systems have pioneered coil-fed laser blanking technology. The best way to experience LaserCoil laser blanking solutions is to visit and observe one of our customer sites in action.
No hard tooling is required, eliminating this investment as well as freeing up floorspace that would typically be dedicated to die storage.
Laser cutting reduces work hardening issues and micro-cracks, which often occur from mechanical blanking when using today’s advanced steels, creating a weld-ready edge.
Literally cut months off new vehicle launches by eliminating the need for blanking dies. Additionally, changeover between parts is as simple as a new program.
Laser cutting provides the ability to design complex blank shapes without the limitations that come from hard tooling, allowing the design of near-net-shape blanks while also optimizing material usage. The ability to achieve tight part nesting and the cutting of curvilinear shapes can significantly reduce material scrap.
Equally capable of cutting traditional steel, AHSS, aluminum or even pre-finished and painted coils.
LaserCoil systems have no complex foundation requirements as they can be installed on a flat floor with only special considerations made for overhead cranes in the coil handling area.
LaserCoil solutions are flexible and can be integrated to work with traditional coil feeding equipment and can even be retrofitted to existing press feeding lines. This allows you to leverage existing capital equipment investment and lower the cost of laser blanking system implementation while gaining flexibility, speed, and a high level of quality. We can provide complete blanking line solutions — new or rebuilt — from coil cart to stacker and everything in between.
If you are interested in exploring how laser blanking can provide you with a manufacturing solution to meet your flexible production requirements, we offer complete consulting services. We can provide feasibility studies, sample part runs, and test runs with various types of materials. Upon evaluation we can offer guidance in the application of a laser blanking solution or provide options for low-volume production support.
LaserCoil production solutions are configured to your needs in single- or multi-laser head arrangements featuring up to 10kW lasers. Each system comes with our unique nesting and cutting software that optimizes material use and makes changeover as simple as entering a new part number.
The dual-head machine, patented since 2010, improves production rates by an average of 85% as compared to the single-head system. When we upgraded from a 4kw to 6kW laser, there was another a 10 -25 percent increase in speed, enabling the systems to cut 0.5 to 0.75mm thick materials at 1.5 meters/second. With an 8kW system, simple shapes in material thicknesses from 0.5 to 0.75mm can be cut with speeds approaching 2.2 meters/second, making laser blanking a viable and competitive manufacturing choice for volumes of less than 100,000 per year. And now, the LaserCoil product is offering 10KW lasers which will greatly increase production rates for parts over 1.5mm in thickness.
| Specifications | 2-head |
| Coil width | 2.1 m |
| Coil weight | 42 Metric Tons |
| Coil material | Steel, Aluminum, High Strength Steel |
| Coil thickness | from 0.5 to 3.5mm |
| Cutting speed | 1000-2200 mm/second |
| Number of laser heads | 1 – 8 |
| Power rating per laser head | 1 to 8KW |
| Blank length | Max. 4500mm |
| Stack height | Max. 750mm |
| Stack weight | Max. 17 Metric Tons |
Patented Scrap Handling Delivers Stack-Ready Components
Conveyor lanes independently and dynamically reposition to maintain a clear path below the moving laser head while also automatically shedding scrap during the cutting process. Scrap falls to the bottom of the machine where it is conveyed to a scrap bin or shed to a scrap system. This approach delivers a burr-free, ready-to-stack part at the end of the line without impacting production time. The dynamic conveyor lanes can clearly be seen in operation in this video.
Integrated Z-Axis Design Improves Speed and Quality
Conveyor lanes independently and dynamically reposition to maintain a clear path below the moving laser head while also automatically shedding scrap during the cutting process. Scrap falls to the bottom of the machine where it is conveyed to a scrap bin or shed to a scrap system. This approach delivers a burr-free, ready-to-stack part at the end of the line without impacting production time. The dynamic conveyor lanes can clearly be seen in operation in this video.
Independent Laser Heads Increase Flexibility and Speed
Apply multiple heads (1kW - 10kW) for a shared balancing of the workload, achieving faster processing speeds and improved productivity. Plus, each LaserCoil laser head can cut independently of the other versus being tied together and limited to mirror-image cutting contours.
Multi-Mode Capability Increases Processing Rates and Improves Quality
Choose between Continuous Mode (On the Fly Cutting) or Feed Index Mode (Stop/Start), optimizing cutting parameters for each part configuration.
Retrofit to Existing Equipment
Whereas coil-fed systems require special coil feed and/or special stacking solutions, LaserCoil systems feature simple interfaces that work with traditional feed and stacking equipment, or even be retrofit to existing press feeding lines whether using side- or end-of-line stacking.
High-Speed Gantry Enables Speed and Coordinated Cutting Stations
A hyper-speed, linear induction motor-driven 3-axis gantry delivers speed, stability and agility during high-speed complex motion paths, as well as enabling the addition of coordinated cutting stations.
Intuitive Software for Programming Ease
LaserCoil CAM — unique nesting and cutting software that optimizes material use and makes changeover as simple as entering a new part number. The software takes only minutes from the importing of CAD files to active cutting of a simple blank — just import the CAD files, plug in your parameters, and the software does most of the rest.
Learn more about LaserCoil CAM
PROBLEM
A customer’s mechanically cut blanks required an additional precision shearing operation to prepare the edge prior to a welding operation to produce tailor welded blanks.
RESOLUTION
Blanks were sourced for cutting by a LaserCoil coil-fed laser blanking machine.
RESULTS
PROBLEM
A customer was experiencing splits in the forming process with blanks cut from 2-mm thick AHSS in a traditional blanking press operation.
RESOLUTION
After multiple attempts to resolve the problem with the steel supplier and through blank shape changes, the customer turned to LaserCoil for laser-cut tryout blanks.
RESULTS
PROBLEM
A customer was experiencing downtime due to problems keeping a blanking die running when standard tooling was put into use with high-strength steel.
RESOLUTION
Blanks were sourced for laser cutting on a LaserCoil system while the die tooling was being reworked to accommodate the high-strength materials. CAD data was generated by scanning a finished blank provided by the customer for programming of the LaserCoil equipment.
RESULTS
PROBLEM
A customer’s service operation was experiencing excessive time and cost associated with production of aluminum service parts. To meet orders, stored coils would be slit to accommodate the various service part dies, but processing delays ensued as the dies were used infrequently and typically needed repair prior to use.
RESOLUTION
Blanks were sourced for laser cutting on a LaserCoil system. Customer-supplied CAD data was loaded into the LaserCoil system and part nesting profiles developed.
RESULTS
Think about accomplishing a job changeover in 5 minutes. Without the need for hard tooling, a laser cutting system can be running new blanks simply by changing the recipe. At LaserCoil, we’ve created our LaserCoil CAM software program to ensure you’re getting optimal usage out of your material and your LaserCoil system.
It begins with CAD files being imported into the LaserCoil CAM software program. The user can either ask the software to select the best coil from multiple coils in inventory, create the best nest for a specific coil width, or permit the program to specify the optimum coil width based upon part yield. The software then creates both a nesting pattern that maximizes material usage and a corresponding cutting path routine to operate the laser cutting system, taking into consideration the appropriate grain constraint for material flow as well as part profile.
The operator then generates the cutting path, and adjustments can be made by simply clicking on the profile parameters and setting a new cutting routine. A simulation is run to show the sequenced travel path of the laser cutting head. The program is designed for ease-of-use, enabling even less experienced system operators to quickly create an optimized program.
LaserCoil CAM accommodates single and multiple cutting heads, as well as peripheral automation, such as the system’s dynamic conveyor lanes. In addition to optimizing the part recipes, it also controls and monitors the LaserCoil system during production.
Production simulations can be run virtually on our controller. This is also available to our customers in the standard software package. For an accurate evaluation of the production rates, specific parts will be produced on a LaserCoil production line.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 8253064, 8471175, 8841578. Japanese Letters Patent No. 5591831. Chinese Patent No. ZL2009801138247. Other patents pending.
