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23 Oct 2024
'Radical' EDGE FL platform offers output powers up to 20 kW, plus new cutting heads with adjustable focal plane.
Laser giant Coherent is using this week’s EuroBLECH trade fair in Hanover, Germany, to launch what it describes as a “radical” new series of high-power fiber lasers for industrial applications.
Called EDGE FL, the technology platform offers output powers ranging from 1.5 kW to 20 kW, incorporating both rack-mounted and cabinet designs.
Blank sheet
“As global markets drive the demand for higher-power and more resilient laser systems, the EDGE FL series delivers all the performance but unburdened by a costly price tag,” claims the Pittsburgh-headquartered firm, saying that the series has been designed from scratch for machine tool manufacturers seeking both reliability and affordability.
Coherent suggests that cost savings have been achieved through a combination of high wallplug efficiency and a wide water-cooling temperature range, alongside a 50-strong global network of service centers to ensure maximum system availability and productivity, minimal down time, reduced maintenance costs, and lower spare parts inventory costs.
Martin Seifert, who heads up the company’s high-power fiber laser business unit, commented: “The EDGE FL series is the culmination of innovations that started with a blank sheet of paper upon which we set out to reimagine the fiber laser category.
“This new platform is only possible due to our deep expertise in the components essential to fiber lasers. Coherent brings a global network of manufacturing and support capabilities and offers exceptional value and performance for machine tool manufacturers around the world.”
Cutting heads
Coherent has also launched new 2D laser cutting heads to work alongside the EDGE platform, with the latest “CUT12” offering compatible with fiber lasers in the 4 kW to 12 kW continuous-wave power range.
Operating at a maximum numerical aperture (NA) of 0.15, the CUT12 can utilize the full power of various conventional and beam-shaping fiber lasers.
“With a magnification of 2.0, it can deliver the demanding focused-spot characteristics necessary for high-speed, high-quality cutting,” noted the company. “In addition, it features an adjustable focal plane to accommodate varying process demands.”
Connectivity options include direct EtherCAT controllability, lending utility in applications ranging from job shops to highly integrated automation lines. Although it can be used for virtually any high-power sheet metal cutting process, Coherent says that the CUT12 has been specifically engineered to optimize cost of ownership and performance with the new EDGE series of fiber lasers.
“Coherent has a long history of leadership in the laser cutting head business with our BIMO product line,” observed Seifert. “The CUT12 builds on our well-established quality and extends the utility of our product line by integrating direct EtherCAT controllability. Plus, its operating range of 4 kW to 12 kW makes it compatible with a substantial segment of the current global sheet metal cutting market.”
Of the EDGE FL series, Coherent’s chief strategy officer Giovanni Barbarossa stated: “This transformative product could have only come to market through the unmatched scale of the world’s largest diode pump chip supplier coupled with all the exceptional fiber laser technology and expertise we acquired when the new Coherent Corp. was formed.”
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