When should you upgrade to Fiber Laser cutting

Here are a few fundamentals to help you determine whether a fiber laser will benefit your company.

1. What material and thickness are you cutting?
The material type and thickness is a good place to start. If you are cutting primarily thinner material (80% less than 0.5 in thick), fiber laser might be worth considering.

3. Do the parts get welded afterwards or are they precision parts?
Fiber laser produces a remarkably straight and clean cut, requiring no secondary cleanup operations (material and process dependent). Powder coating and welding require an oxide-free surface that is only achievable with laser cutting.

4. Operating costs add up.
A typical plasma table requires nozzle changes approximately every 800 pierces vs 8000 pierces for a fiber laser. The nozzle cost for fiber is roughly $16 vs $50 for a plasma consumable set. Typical plasma tables often require secondary hole cleanup operations which add additional time and labor costs. Average plasma operating costs are roughly $15 per hour vs fiber laser at around $4 per hour.

5. What is your budget?
If you can afford the investment and you are cutting thinner materials, a fiber laser can allow you to cut more parts for less money. Depending on your part volume, your ROI might be well worth looking into. For the sake of running some numbers, consider a plasma table running one shift for one year. That’s $15/hr x 2000 hrs = $30,000. Now imagine production demand requires a second shift, so $60,000 in operating cost + $36,000 in additional operator labor. With a fiber laser, you would likely be able to cut all the parts you need in the one shift, at an annual cost of $8,000, with additional capacity available. Your laser pays for itself in just a few years!