Laser Cutting Services
Lightning Laser Cutting Precision...Accurate, Clean, Fast
Lightning Laser Cutting has established a position as a quality supplier of Laser Cutting services to customers across a wide range of industries.
Parts that we have cut have frequently become vital components in manufactured goods exported all over the globe. Mostly though they become part of more mundane but necessary items that surround us in our daily lives.
We invite you to browse the list below to see the many ways we might be able to help you in meeting your production requirements.
What is Laser Cutting?
Laser cutting is the controlled movement of a focussed beam of coherent light which ablates the material in it's path. This makes the laser much more accurate than other heat generated cutting methods and much faster that traditional tool making methods.
The primary advantages of Laser Cutting are:
- Shorter set-up time gives lower cost prototyping without sacrificing accuracy
- Faster turnaround for parts regardless of complexity
- Design changes for parts can be easily accommodated
- Accuracy to 0.1mm or .03%
- Clean square edges on most materials
- Reduced wastage
- Lightning Laser Cutting can cut any shape up to 3000mm by 1500mm from sheet material
What is Rotary Cutting?
As part of Lightning Laser Cutting's continuing improvements, we also offer a tube and pipe cutting service. We can as a result program our machines to cut complex pipe intersections as well as offering slitting and hole cutting of pipes up to 200mm in diameter.
In conjunction with the other services Lightning Laser Cutting offers, we believe we can provide a total package for production of our customers needs.
What materials do we cut?
The power of the finely focused, intense beam of light and the lightning speed with which it cuts make the laser the tool of choice for processing a wide variety of materials cost effectively.
Lightning Laser Cutting can cut all steel types, aluminium, timber and plastics such as:
- Mild steels to 20mm thickness
- Cleancut Stainless steels 0.1 to 16mm thick
- Acrylic to 25mm with a flame polished edge
- Aluminium to 10mm
- Other plastics (HIPS, Corian etc.) and foam (but not PVC due to noxious gas by-product)
- Wood - MDF and plywood to 30mm thick
- Other materials viz. rubber, leather
What sort of parts do we cut?
- Lightning Laser Cutting can cut a wide range of parts such as:
- Sheet metal parts that might otherwise be punched
- Flanges for welding to pipework
- Heavy automotive parts for manifolds, towbars, pans and guards
- Stencils and templates for drilling, architectural and sculptural work
- Logos and letters and all manner of signage
- Marketing and POS display items
- Solder Paste Masks for printed circuit board manufacture
- Pipes and tubes, intersections, slitting and holes
What information do we require from the customer?
Lightning Laser Cutting to be able to cut a part, we need the outline, cutouts and holes to be converted to a CNC program to run our laser cutting machines. Our specialist programming skills tailor the cutting path and parameters to optimise material usage, repeatability and quality. The reduced wastage leads of course to reduced costs to the customer and the environment.
Drawings, samples or vectored files (CAD generated files ie. DXF or Gerber etc.) all can be the basis for a cutting job.
What do we charge for?
Our very reasonable charges are based on the length of time the job occupies our laser cutting machine, with a small allowance for any required programming and/or complexity. Materials that are supplied by Lightning Laser Cutting are priced with minimal markup to ensure that customers get a quality product at a price that they will be happy with.
Who supplies the materials?
We have well established lines of supply for quality materials at reasonable prices or we can cut customers materials if required.
