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Compressed Air For Beam Purge

denmcd

Plastic
Joined
Dec 5, 2019
Good Evening,

New to the forum, and I apologize if this thread is elsewhere as I did not locate one...

We have a Trumpf 3030 L20 Co2 Laser. One of our largest expenses annually on this machine is the beam purge nitrogen. I have previous experience with other lasers (Mazak and Tanaka) which both just use compressed air.

Does any one have any good/or bad experiences that they could share who have made the switch (or tried to) to compressed air on Trumpf CO2 lasers?

Thanks

Denten
 
Denten,

No experience on Trumpf CO2 systems but plenty on other’s CO2 beam delivery at this power level and higher. To make the switch to air you need to acquire a refrigerated air dryer and filter set that meets ISO 8573.1 Air Quality Class 1.4.1 that will service the flow that Trumpf specifies. Many get by with Quality Standard 1.4.2 for a little less money. This goes without saying that you need a shop air supply. The problem with “shop air” is by definition it can mostly be made up of water, oil and rusty grit. This mix can quickly overwhelm a filter set no matter how good. After you ensure your air compressor isn’t blowing oil, flush out your supply lines before you connect to your new purge hardware.

You are a rather rare bird to be using nitrogen for beam delivery purging. Most use air that has been properly scrubbed.

Ike
 
There are a number of companies that manufacture nitrogen generators that remove the oxygen from the air flow by using either zeolite gas adsorption or membrane filtration.The membrane systems produce 95 to 99% percent purity nitrogen. The adsorption systems can produce 99.999% purity nitrogen. The high purity systems have additional process stages that remove hydrocarbons and trace water and oxygen. The cost of the generator can be recovered quickly If you use a large amount of low pressure inert gas.

Removing water, Co2 , and hydrocarbons should be sufficient for the laser application, . Any zeolite pressure swing air dryer will work. The presence of oxygen should not be a problem. Balston makes a FTIR purge gas generator specifically for this purpose.
 








 
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