LARGE GANTRY PLATE LASER OFFERS MULTITUDE OF FEATURES

ESAB Welding and Cutting offers the Alpharex Gantry, its large gantry plate laser. The Alpharex offers many features including auto focusing, adaptive optics, modular cutting head, advanced beam delivery, and laser marking. Additional options include bevel cutting, pierce detection, laser process control, and laser welding on the same gantry. Benefits of this new technology include easier unattended operation, reduced down time, lower operating costs and a built in provision for future upgrades.

With ESAB?s exclusive Vision CNC and Columbus programming systems, large plate laser cutting is effortless. ESAB?s gantry design carries the laser resonator on board allowing for virtually unlimited cutting lengths. Wattages are available from 3.2 to 6 Kw power, with cutting widths up to 17 ft wide.

The Alpharex also produces consistent laser intensity and cut quality over the entire working envelope. Featuring positioning speeds up to 1000 in/min, the Alpharex is extremely accurate and reliable and requires very low maintenance.

ESAB?s unique beam delivery uses no focusing lens and its completely enclosed design allows for trouble free operation in the harshest environments. ESAB uses the same gantry design for systems from 3.2 to 6Kw allowing for future upgrades to higher power lasers utilizing the same spare and wear parts.

The Alpharex features ESAB?s patented adaptive optics, which vary the laser beam radius and focus length depending on the material being cut. This enables the Alpharex to cut a broader range of materials and thicknesses with the same nozzle, which makes it exceptional for unattended operation. Because focal length is not set manually, setup for different materials is quick and easy. The design uses focusing mirrors, which are water-cooled and less sensitive than lenses, resulting in increased productivity. Alpharex?s transmissive optics, when compared to a normal focusing lens, results in lower operating costs due to increased lifetime.

ESAB?s Alpharex features a modular head design that uses many of the same components for straight cutting, bevel cutting and laser marking and features an improved collision protection system. The modular system makes it easy to upgrade from a straight cutting head to a bevel cutting head. Within minutes, the cutting head is easily changed out with a welding attachment, allowing the machine to be used for pure laser welding or even hybrid laser welding.

ESAB offers a system for monitoring the laser cutting process, which continually observes piercing and cut quality, and can automatically slow down the cutting speed to maintain the cut, or shut down the process and stop the machine if the cut is lost. An automatic restart feature further automates the system for maximum up-time during ?lights-out? operation. Automatic pierce detection reduces cutting time by advancing to the cutting process as soon as the material is pierced.

ESAB?s external optic design gives consistent beam delivery. Using common parts for the bridge telescope and the carriage telescope reduces spare optics inventory. Mirrors are easy to remove and replace for cleaning. During operation, the fully enclosed beam path is purged with nitrogen to prevent contamination, and is streamlined to reduce nitrogen consumption.

Window break detection is a new feature that monitors the condition of the system?s transmissive optics, automatically shutting down the laser beam if the optic is dirty or in the preliminary stages of breaking. By reducing the risk of damage and contamination to the beam path, this feature improves operating safety and reduces machine down time. Additionally, it contributes to the automation of the Alpharex, allowing for unattended ?lights-out? operation.

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