The Industry Impact To Fonon's 2016 Update on Large, Hi-Power Cutting Systems
The majority of end-users have C02 based metal cutting systems as this was the prevailing technology years ago. Their systems are on the end of their life cycle. C02 based systems are significant power consumption hogs (and also increased consumables and maintenance costs). The technical reason is that a C02 laser beam reflects 90% of the energy away from the material requiring significant power to make up for the losses.
The annual costs savings over the first 5 years is more than the price of the machine.
End-user are able to upgrade their system from 1KW to 8KW at their facility by themselves an industry 1st. Saves significant dollars as it is not trivial to ship these large systems to the manufacturer to install/upgrade. This is not a free cost basis service from any supplier.
An integrated laser and chiller (heat exchange) reduces costs, lowers power consumption, and reduces the facility space footprint by ~ 30% in overall manufacturing space. Just tap into the factory water supply and your done. In addition, you just eliminated additional monthly consumable and maintenance costs.
Orthogonality is a real issue in the market. Gantry misalignment, metal sheet jamming, and system seizers increase monthly maintenance costs, loss of productivity, and additional loss of raw materials. Self-correcting at the push of a button is significant.
The most interesting benefit based on my research is the Adaptive Beam Shaping Technology Fonon is announcing. All current generation systems use a gaussian shaped beam profile that is designed for thin metals. Attempting to cut thicker metals takes more time and the edge quality degrades as the material gets thicker. With the ability to adapt the beam shape based on changes in thicker metal sheets, Fonon's 2016 Titan changes the landscape in productivity providing a single system that can adapt to any changes in metal thickness.
MetalMaster