Laser Service

 

PPD Ltd. manufacture high quality laser cut parts in a range of metals and thicknesses, we also offer a combination etch and laser process where we use over 40 years of etching experience with the latest in laser technology.

Metal Types & Thicknesses

For a full list of the metal types and thicknesses please take a look at our Stock Metal Page, the range of thicknesses available for the etch/laser combination is 0.5mm up to 3mm, for laser only we can cut up to 6mm, depending on the design it is possible to cut up to 10mm.

Etching or Laser?

In general the etch process offers a more cost effective solution for thicknesses up to ~0.5mm, for metal thicknesses above 0.5mm the cost may be lower to use a combination etch & laser cut than to etch only.

The cost of an etched only sheet is based on the sheet size, metal type and thickness, for etch and laser combination the cost is dependant on the cut time of the sheet, so more complex shapes will cost higher to etch/laser than a simpler shape.

For advice on which process would be more cost effective please contact one of our sales team who can provide further information.

Laser Dimensional Accuracy

All holes and metal widths should be a minimum of 50% of the metal thickness to be cut, for example a 1mm hole can be cut on 2mm brass, the accuracy if parts are drawn to these dimensions is +/-0.1mm.

It is possible to achieve holes through the metal if drawn less than 50% of the metal thickness, however the dimensional accuracy is not guaranteed, please get in touch for further details if this applies to your project.

Quality of Lasered Parts

PPD Ltd. manufacture high quality lasered parts, the edge quality is excellent, you can see below a few examples of the quality of edge:

Parts are usually supplied 'tagged' to an outer frame, the tags are added by our laser software.

Artwork Format for Laser Only Parts

For laser only parts please supply a drawing of the cutline, a single line drawing without any hatch fill:

  

 

Artwork Format for Etch/Laser Combination Parts

The profile cut lines should be drawn as for laser only parts - a single black line at hairline width, on a separate layer the surface etch detail should be drawn as a solid hatched/filled region, red represents a surface etch on the front and blue a surface etch on the reverse of the part.

The etch depth will usually be a maximum of ~0.3mm, regardless of the thickness of metal used, the specific depth may be less depending on the detail to be etched.

File Format for all Processes

At PPD Ltd. we use 3 main programmes to edit and process artwork, Corel, Adobe Illustrator and AutoCAD.

If you have access to one of these programmes please send us your artwork in the native software format, .cdr for Corel, dwg for AutoCAD, ai for Adobe Illustrator, if you are using an alternative package please send in one of the following formats: -

dxf / dgn / eps / pdf (*)

* The pdf must be of a vector format.