Laser cut sheet metal brackets
Laser cut sheet metal brackets
We have just manufactured a batch of mild steel clamping brackets for one of our customers made to their own design. You can see that the brackets are not a complex part but it’s surprising how many features there are that we have to take into account when deciding which machines to use to manufacture them. When we first look at a new component such as these sheet metal brackets we have to decide whether we will laser cut or CNC punch out the blanks. The factors that can play a part in this decision are the material type, thickness, number of holes, complexity of cut-out shape, and complexity of the bracket outer profile. These brackets could have been CNC punched or laser cut with a result that the customer would have be happy with. We selected laser cutting with our Trumpf 3030 fibre laser to eliminate the edge de-burring so that a clean outer profile was achieved as the bracket was a cosmetically important part.
Let’s take a look at the stages we went through to produce these brackets, not only correctly to our customer’s requirements but in an efficient manner.
CNC Program
We created a 3D model of the bracket and used this to generate an accurate 2D blank for the bracket. We then tooled this part and filled up a standard sheet of metal, a 2M x 1M sheet with the brackets. All the necessary coding was generated to drive the laser cutting machine to produce the sheet metal bracket blank.
Radiused Corners
As well as laser cutting a clean outer edge profile the ability to cut any corner radius size and blend it to the bracket outer profile. This is great for small batches of work where a customer would not want to pay for special corner radius tooling. Laser cut sheet metal tends to have a cleaner square form.
Laser Cut Clean Edges
Not only does the outer edge of the bracket blank look clean and a continual profile it needs no de-burring in mild steel at this gauge. This is a big advantage for laser cutting in helping to reduce the secondary cleaning operations.
Tapped Holes
If we have punched this bracket blank out on our Trumpf 3000 CNC punch press we could have tapped the M3 threads in the machine. We chose not to do this on this occasion so that we could have a really clean outer edge from laser cutting. This meant we would have to tap the thread as a secondary operation which was done with a tapping head in one of our pillar drills.
Bending
The final operation was to bend up the 2 sides to transfer the flat blank into a U shaped bracket. These brackets were bent on one of our 2 Trumpf 7036 CNC press brakes. Using standard CNC bend tooling and a quick program the brackets were bent up
Perhaps you have a sheet metal bracket that needs laser cutting? We would be more that happy to take a look at your ideas and produce some prices for you. Please e-mail your designs to sales@vandf.co.uk or call us on 01489 577786