 How to Choose a Plastic Cutting Machine? Hi, this is Watson. Welcome to the world of CNC equipment. In this video, we will understand what types of plastic there are, which machine to choose for working with plastic, features of plastic cutting. Subscribe to our channel. There is a lot of informative and interesting content ahead of you. Here we go! Let's figure out what types of plastic CO2 laser machines work with. Plastic is a group of polymer materials. These include PET, polystyrene, double layer plastics, acrylic and plexiglass. They can be cut and engraved. Plastic products are found to us daily. Souvenirs, toys, menu holders, POS materials, outdoor advertising. How to Choose a Machine for Working with Plastic? To choose the machine meeting your requirements, answer four questions. One, what am I going to produce and to what extent? Two, what materials will I process? Three, the maximum and minimum size of the workpiece to be processed. Four, what thickness of material will I work with? The laser machine is easy to master. It has a high speed of operation, accuracy and after it there is little production waste. Let's focus on each question. One, what am I going to produce and to what extent? Are you going to use a machine for cutting or engravings? Answering the question will make it easier to answer the following questions. If you plan to use machine for engraving then do not consider options with a large working field because the engraving speed will be low. Also, keep in mind that a high power laser tube is not designed for engraving. What are you going to produce? It is difficult to give an answer to such a question right away, especially since the possibilities of a laser machine are limited only by your imagination. Let's focus on the maximum and minimum size of the finished product. The working field of the machine should not be less than the product. What is the volume? Laser machines are divided into desktop, medium format, large format. If laser cutting or engraving is your hobby, then take a machine with a working field slightly larger than the workpiece. If you have mass production, then consider a machine with a large working field and two or four laser heads. Two, what materials will be processed? Each material has its own characteristics when cutting and engraving. Some materials cannot be cut without intensive blowing and other materials are only spoiled by intensive blowing when cutting. When working with leather, a strong and persistent odor appears in the room. In order to get rid of it, you will need a ventilation system or enhanced smoke removal. It is problematic to cut pet with a thickness of more than three millimeters on a laser machine. Intensive blowing is needed to avoid an unsolder or yellow edge when cutting. When working with polystyrene, it is rarely possible to avoid a melted end face. Something is easier to cut, something is more difficult, and something cannot be cut on a laser machine in any way. Our experts will share all the subtleties of processing on a laser machine, and we'll definitely shoot a video about it. Three, the maximum and minimum size of the workpiece to be processed. One of the main questions when choosing a laser machine, the standard size of a sheet of plastic is 2,000 by 3,000 millimeters, but a machine with such dimensions of the working field or more is not necessarily needed. The material can be pre-cut for your tasks. To separate the sheet, you can use a machine or a jigsaw. It is more economical to cut the material on a laser machine because of the smaller thickness of the cut. You can also buy the right size material, but the standards differ in each country. They depend on the cutting equipment or length measures. Watson has a wide range of machines with different sizes of the working field. Four, what thickness of material will I work with? One of the most important questions. It should be answered when you know exactly what material you'll be working with. Let's share a life hack from Watson. Teach you how to determine the power of a laser tube for cutting plywood. Plexiglass will need 10 watts of power per 1.5 millimeter of material. Unfortunately, the rule is not universal for cutting other materials. There are subtleties. Rubber can be cut only with intensive blowing and peronite will have to be cut in several passes. The laser tube is a replaceable part. Depending on the task on Watson machines, starting from 60-40, it can be replaced with a more or less powerful one. Now you know what to pay attention to when choosing a laser machine. If you have any questions, then ask them in the comments.