• Advanced Manufacturing

SHEET HAPPENS VI: Automatic and semi-automatic nesting aids

  • Advanced Manufacturing
SHEET HAPPENS" is a column written by a Lantek customer, a seasoned professional who has overcome thousands of challenges. In this blog series, he will regularly give us tips, tricks and "best practices" on Lantek Expert. We look forward to each episode - hopefully you do too.

Which cutting technology is the most suited to your plant?

  • Nesting
Thirty years ago, the global distribution of sheet metal cutting machine-tools was dominated by the oxycut variety (large thicknesses) and, to a lesser extent, the plasma variety (small thicknesses). There was a niche for punching machines along with water jet and laser machines. The latter were aimed at thicknesses less than 5mm and were expensive. Since then, the trend has shifted, shrugging oxycut in favor of other technologies according to thicknesses.

‘Progressive Corners Beveling’: The algorithm that revolutionizes the way bevels are cut

  • Digital Transformation
One of the biggest obstacles that the metal industry faces is cutting bevels or chamfers on corners. After months working on how to overcome the loop that is generated, we’ve developed Progressive Corners Beveling (PCB), an algorithm based on dynamic control of the 5 axes, which means that the head is progressively oriented with the angle of the next bevel. That is, it no longer remains perpendicular to the cutting direction, as it does in tangential programming. Thanks to this we save 15 mm to 30 mm of material from each loop. As a result, there is no material waste, so we gain time and therefore, money.