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Advantages of laser cutting acrylic
Laser cutting of acrylic, other plastics
and wood has several advantages over other methods of cutting
such as CNC routing. Firstly, acrylic can be laser cut more
accurately with a laser than a CNC cutter. A mechanical cutter
can only cut detail as fine as the diameter of the smallest
available tool. A laser cutter by contrast can cut to the
width of the laser beam, measured in hundredths of a millimeter.
This makes laser cutting of acrylic for cutting
acrylic letters and logos.
Mechanical cutting leaves a rougher edge finish to the cut
surface than laser cutting, which need additional operations
to achieve the standard of finish achieved with a laser. Laser
cutting acrylic leaves a polished, finished edge requiring
no further work. In some instances it is not possible to access
the cut edge fully enough to polish and so the acrylic
has to be laser cut.
Laser cutting acrylic requires minimal
jigging and fixturing making it an ideal process for cutting
pieces that are difficult to hold using mechanical cutting
methods.
Lasers are quick to set-up and so smaller production runs
and one-off pieces are more practical to produce using laser
cutting.
Cutting lasers have no mechanical tools that wear during
production. As such the finished product is highly accurate,
with extremely high repeatability of detail.
As the width of a laser beam is much narrower than a typical
CNC cutting tool, corners (such as right angles or tight triangles)
can be cut without leaving a tool radius associated with mechanical
cutting.
Acrylic applications that are ideally suited
for laser cutting include:
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