CAD/CAM, nesting software enhances plasma, oxyfuel system capabilities

Situation

Kerf Developments, Rochdale, U.K., has been building plasma, oxyfuel, and waterjet cutting machines since 2002. The company originally started as a service-based organization repairing and upgrading profile cutting machinery. The experiences it gained working on a variety of equipment formed the basis of its current machine offering.

In addition to offering a standard line of profile cutting machines, Kerf develops customized machinery for specific applications, designing and building machines up to 4 m wide and any length, with a combination of plasma and oxyfuel heads. The smallest machine the company has supplied has a working area of 2.5 by 1.25 m; the largest machine’s working area is 40 by 4 m with multiple bridges. Plasma systems can cut material thicknesses up to 90 mm, while oxyfuel handles up to 150 mm.

As part of its continued development, the company needed to evaluate the capabilities of various CAD/CAM and nesting systems, as this was becoming an ever-increasing requirement from its customers.

Resolution

Following evaluation of several systems, the company chose Lantek Expert, and the training began.

“All our field service engineers have a copy of Lantek Expert software as part of their toolbox so that they can provide an instant response to any queries,” said Dan Taylor, Kerf’s managing director. “Lantek provides regular and valuable updates to the software and are always on hand to provide online support to fine-tune systems to work in line with our customers’ needs.”

For offline programming of the cutting machines, users can import CAD data directly into the software system, nest parts on the material to optimize usage, and automatically create the cutting path. This keeps the machine running to help achieve high productivity levels and short delivery times, the company reports.

As part of the collaboration, Lantek has worked closely with the Kerf engineering team to perfect its UltraSharp technology, which delivers high-quality parts with a square edge, better-quality edges, and 1-to-1 hole sizes (for example, a 5-mm hole in 5-mm material). This capability lets the operator use plasma rather than laser to manufacture parts, which is especially effective for thicker components.

“The UltraSharp technology involves internally enhanced software protocols, accelerating and decelerating the torch dynamics on tight contours and holes; controlling the power, gas pressure, and flow, amongst other things; and also automatically selecting special lead-in and lead-out configurations,” explained Taylor. “The result is a constant and true arc with no lag between the top and bottom of the material being cut. All the parameters required to achieve this are built into our technology tables, making it easy to achieve high-quality components direct from the CAD data.”