Yorkshire Profiles have made a substantial investment in the next generation of laser cutting technology.
The new ‘Ventis’ laser will arrive in mid April 2020 and is only the second installation in the whole of the UK. “We have waited patiently a very long time for this technology to come to fruition,” explains Managing Director Matthew Halliwell.
“Existing high-powered fibre lasers are very fast, but edge quality suffers even on thinner materials when compared to older and slower CO2 lasers.”
The ‘Ventis’ laser has the ability to manipulate the laser beam pattern whilst processing, this technology creates possibilities never before accomplished with any other solid-state laser cutting machine.
It provides Yorkshire Profiles with the ability to process a wider range of material thicknesses at speeds equivalent to much higher power machines. The new capabilities include processing 25mm mild steel, 20mm stainless steel, 16mm aluminium, 10mm brass and 8mm copper.
The machine is exceptional at processing stainless steel and aluminium, in some cases three times faster than equivalent ‘standard’ machines on the market whilst also seeing a 50% improvement in the edge quality and no dross.
“Quality has always been key for us and 12 COMMERCIAL FEATURE THE NEXT GENERATION OF LASER CUTTING TECHNOLOGY our clients. We didn’t feel that any other existing fibre laser on the market met our needs. The industry has been hell-bent on faster speeds for some time but this came at a cost of accuracy and appearance of the components. “We are pleased that Amada has launched a machine which can get the best of both worlds and meet our required quality level as a company.”
This machine is in addition to their existing fully automated ‘Ensis’ fibre laser cutting set-up and will provide an outstanding level of capacity and ability compared to market competitors, without a compromise on the quality of the components.
The ‘Ensis’ at Yorkshire Profiles has a material handling system which is set up to process up to nine tons of sheet metal in a single lights-out operation. Both machines are fitted with a high level of automation.
Nozzle changes are carried out by the equipment itself and not by an operator and there is no requirement for lens changes across the full range of materials, effectively eliminating any setup time. With the removal of their older CO2 equipment and going ‘full-fibre’, it also removes warm-up and cool-down cycles associated with older equipment which will free up one hour additional production time each day.
he new hardware combined with their own unique management system called “HelixONE” will result in a powerful sheet metal fabrication setup for not only Yorkshire but the UK as a whole. n You can follow updates about the progress at www.yorkshireprofiles.co.uk/ blog