JPH0243599B2 - - Google Patents

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] [Technical Field of the Invention] The present invention relates to a laser processing device, and particularly to a laser processing device that processes objects such as cloth, leather, etc. by scanning a laser beam. It is related to.

[Prior art]

FIG. 1 shows an example of a conventional laser processing apparatus. In this figure, the cutting conveyor 10
A spreading device 14 in which a roll 12 of rolled fabric is set is disposed on the left side. Further, on the right side of the cutting conveyor 10, a scrap processing device 16 is arranged to accommodate and process the scraps after cutting. The fabric 18 to be processed is
The scraps are fed from the spreading device 14 onto the cutting conveyor 10 as indicated by the arrow F1 in the figure, and are stored in the scrap processing device 16 as indicated by the arrow F2. Near the center of the cutting conveyor 10 is a laser head 2.
A drive mechanism 22 for scanning 0 is arranged. This drive mechanism 22 includes a first drive body 24,
A second driving body 26 is also included. A pair of first drive bodies 24 are provided on both sides of the cutting conveyor 10, and a second drive body 26 is provided so as to be movable in the direction of arrow F3. That is, the second driver 26 is driven by the first driver 24 in the direction of arrow F3. The direction of this arrow F3 coincides with the coordinate axis X, which is the first coordinate axis assumed on the surface of the fabric 18.

A carriage 28 is attached to the second drive body 26, and the carriage 28 is driven by the second drive body 26 in the direction of arrow F4 in the figure. The direction of this arrow F4 coincides with the coordinate axis Y, which is a second coordinate axis orthogonal to the first coordinate axis assumed on the surface of the fabric 18. In the carriage 28,
A laser head 20 is fixed. That is,
The laser head 20 is scanned by a first driver 24 in the direction of the coordinate axis X, and by a second driver 26 in the direction of the coordinate axis Y.

Further, a laser oscillator 30 is arranged near the cutting conveyor 10, and an optical means 32 consisting of a prism or a mirror is arranged on the second driving body 26 mentioned above. Further, the laser oscillator 30 is provided with a light guiding means 34. The laser light emitted from the light guiding means 34 passes through the optical path L1 and enters the optical means 32, and after the optical path is changed here, it passes through the optical path L2 and reaches the laser head 20.
reach. The direction of the optical path L1 is the direction in which the optical means 32 moves, that is, the direction of the arrow F3 of the second driver 26.
corresponds to the direction of movement. Further, the direction of the optical path L2 corresponds to the moving direction of the laser head 20, that is, the moving direction of the carriage 28 as indicated by the arrow F4. Therefore, no matter how the laser head 20 moves,
The laser light output from the laser oscillator 30 can reach the laser head 20 in good condition.

Next, to explain the operation of the above conventional example,
The fabric 18 is transported along with the operation of the cutting conveyor 10 and passes through the laser head 20. The laser head 20 is scanned and moved by the drive mechanism 22, and as a result, the laser beam is scanned while drawing a fixed pattern on the fabric 18.

However, in the conventional laser processing apparatus as described above, the size of the drive mechanism 22 increases in proportion to the size of the pattern to be cut, and it is necessary to provide sufficient space for the arrangement. For this reason,
The length of the laser processing device, especially the cutting conveyor 10, becomes long. Further, the noise or vibration accompanying the operation of the drive mechanism 22 must also be considerably large.

Furthermore, since the movement range of the laser head 20 coincides with the cutting pattern, there is also the disadvantage that it is difficult to perform cutting at high speed.

[Summary of the invention]

The present invention has been made in view of these points,
The purpose is to provide a laser processing device that can perform high-speed processing and reduce noise and vibration. It has a mirror and a concave mirror that condenses the reflected light from the reflecting mirror, and the laser beam transmitted from the laser light source via the transmission line and incident on the reflecting mirror is converted into a first beam by rotating the swing axis. A condensing device that irradiates the workpiece by swinging in the coordinate axis direction is moved in the second coordinate axis direction orthogonal to the first coordinate axis, and the operation of scanning the laser beam is controlled based on a predetermined processing pattern. Furthermore, the transmission path adjusts the beam diameter of the laser beam incident on the condenser to the focal length of the concave mirror so that the spot diameter on the processing surface of the workpiece becomes a predetermined value. The object is to be achieved by a laser processing apparatus including a beam expanding means that expands the beam to a corresponding beam diameter.

[Embodiments of the invention]

Hereinafter, the laser processing apparatus according to the present invention will be explained in detail based on the embodiments shown in FIGS. 2 to 5.

FIG. 2 shows an embodiment of a laser processing apparatus according to the present invention, and FIG. 3 shows a schematic configuration of this apparatus as viewed from the front. In these FIGS. 2 and 3, the fabric 100 to be processed is
The slat conveyor 10 is a support base on which the slat conveyor 10 is supported.
2, a spreading device 104 for the fabric 100 is arranged. This spreading device 104 includes a fabric 1
A raw fabric roll 106 on which 00 is wound is set, and the fabric 100 wound around this raw fabric roll 106 is sent onto a slat conveyor 102 by a fabric spreading device 104. .
A scrapping device 108 is disposed on the right side of the slat conveyor 102, and is adapted to store scrap remaining after processing is completed.

A substantially U-shaped frame 110 is arranged at an appropriate position near the center of the slat conveyor 102, and a condensing device 112 that condenses laser light and irradiates it onto the fabric 100 is attached to the horizontal portion 110A of the frame 110. A cursor 114 is placed there. This cursor 114 is moved to the frame 11 by a driving device.
It is designed so that it can run in any direction on the horizontal section 110A of 0. In other words, the light condensing device 112 can run along the horizontal portion 110A in any direction along the coordinate axis Y direction. In addition, the horizontal part 11
0A is arranged parallel to the fabric 100 and perpendicular to the feeding direction of the fabric 100. Further, the driving device may be provided on the cursor 114 or on the frame 110 side.

Slut conveyor 102 or spreading device 10
4, a laser oscillator 128 is arranged, and furthermore, on one shoulder 110B of the frame 110, an optical means 130 consisting of a prism mirror or the like is arranged.
The location is fixed. A transmission body 132 made of an optical fiber or the like is provided between the laser oscillator 128 and the optical means 130, and the laser beam whose direction is changed by the optical means 130 is expanded in beam diameter by the beam expanding means 134. After that, the light is transmitted through the air and enters the light condensing device 112. That is, the transmission body 132, the optical means 130, and the horizontal portion 110A of the frame 110
A transmission path for laser light is formed by the slanted space.

FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram showing the configuration of a condensing device and a beam expanding means.As shown by the arrow in the figure, the laser beam passes through a beam expanding device 134 consisting of a convex mirror 120 and a concave mirror A122, and the beam diameter increases from _φ1 to After being magnified to φ ₂ , it enters the condenser 112 . Light condensing device 1
12 is a mirror 124 that reflects the laser beam whose beam diameter has been expanded, and a mirror 124 that focuses the beam and
It consists of a concave mirror B126 with a focal point connected to the top. Note that the mirror 124 is attached to the end of the swing axis RX so as to be inclined with respect to the two-dimensional plane. In this embodiment, it is installed so as to be inclined with respect to the surface to be processed of the fabric 100 placed on the slat conveyor 102. The condensing device 112 is configured to swing around the center θ of an axis PX arranged parallel to the traveling direction of the cursor 114, that is, the own traveling direction, that is, to swing in the direction of the arrow FX with θ as the center. . Then, the beam expanding means 134 and the condensing device 112 are arranged so that the center θ of the swing axis PX and the optical axis θ ₂ of the laser beam having the beam diameter φ ₂ coincide with each other. Note that the cursor 114 is provided with a drive device that rotates the swing axis PX about θ as shown by the arrow FX. Also, θ ₁ is the beam diameter φ ₁
This is an arrow indicating the optical axis of the laser beam, and the traveling direction of the Y condensing device 112.

By configuring as above, laser light
RB is convex mirror 120, concave mirror A122, mirror 1
24 and concave mirror B126, the focus is on the fabric 10.
0, and is swung in the direction of the coordinate axis X by rotation of the axis PX, and is scanned in the direction of the coordinate axis X, which is assumed to be on the fabric 100. The image is scanned in the direction of the coordinate axis Y.

Note that the beam expanding means consisting of the convex mirror 120 and the concave mirror A122 is for narrowing down the spot diameter d of the laser beam RB on the fabric 100. That is, the spot diameter d is the concave mirror B126.
For the focal length F, the beam diameter D of the laser beam incident on the concave mirror B126, and the constant k, it is expressed as d=kF/D. Therefore, even when the focal length F is set to a large value, if the spot diameter d is to be kept constant, the beam diameter D must also be increased in proportion to F. In the present invention, the focal length F of the concave mirror 126 is increased, and the condensing device 112 and the fabric 1
00, the range of swing of the light condensing device 112 can be made smaller while processing the same processing range on the fabric 100. In other words, the range of fluctuation of the laser beam can be reduced. In other words, compared to a concave mirror with a short focal length F, the rotation range of the swing axis PX can be made larger.
Therefore, a beam expanding means as described above is provided.
Further, since the depth of focus is increased by using a long focus concave mirror, the influence of defocus on the fabric 100 is also reduced.

Next, a portion of the slat conveyor 102 is curved in an arc shape, thereby forming a processing curved portion 102A. This processed curved part 1
02A is configured to be a part of the circumference of a radius R with the rotation axis center θ of the swing axis PX of the light condensing device 112 as the center point. (See Figure 3) For this reason,
Even when the laser beam RB is scanned in the direction of the coordinate axis X by swinging the condensing device 112 around the center θ of the swing axis PX, the optical distance between the concave mirror B126 and the fabric 100 does not change, so the focal point There is no risk of it shifting. The slat conveyor 102 is constituted by a honeycomb-shaped core or panel made of a thin plate material, such as aluminum, in which deep hexagonal openings are formed, ie, a so-called honeycomb panel.

Smoke emitted when the fabric 100 is cut by the laser beam is sucked in the direction of arrow A shown in FIG. 3 by the smoke evacuation device 150. Partition 151 is smoke evacuation device 15
It forms part of 0. This smoke exhaust device 1
The suction of smoke by the fabric 50 brings the fabric 100 into close contact with the slat conveyor 102, which also has the effect of allowing accurate cutting. Note that in FIG. 2, illustration of the smoke evacuation device 150 is omitted.

Next, as shown in FIG.
A processing control device 200 is disposed near the machine, and an example of its configuration is shown in FIG.

In this FIG. 5, the processing control device 200 is
It is composed of a first-stage processing device 300 that performs production management, pattern making, grading, or marking processing, and a second-stage processing device 400 that performs other direct processing. A data input means 202 such as a paper tape is connected to the processing device 300 .

The processing device 300 includes a production management section 302, a pattern making/grading section (hereinafter simply referred to as "PG section") 304, and a marking section 3.
06. Among these, the production management section 302 has a function of instructing processing processing based on data necessary for production management such as the production quantity and type of the entire processing work. In the PG section 304,
Pattern making and grading work is performed based on data input from the production management department 302, and data regarding specific patterns is calculated. Pattern making is the creation of a specific processing pattern, and grading is the creation of variation patterns according to each size from a standard pattern. This data in the PG section 304 is input to the marking section 306. The marking unit 306 performs a process of arranging patterns on the fabric 100 with a high yield based on the input data. The data of this marking section 306 is input to the subsequent processing device 400. In the processing device 400, the marking section 3
Laser light scanning is performed based on the data input from 06, and the fabric 100 is cut.

Next, the subsequent processing device 400 will be explained. This processing device 400 is mainly composed of a cutting control section 402, which is connected to an oscillator operation panel 404, a head drive operation panel 406, and a servo controller 408, respectively. The cutting control unit 402 also controls the width of the spreading device 10.
4, are also connected to the scrap processing device 108 and the conveyor drive device 410, respectively. Among these, the oscillator operation panel 404 is connected to the laser oscillator 128.
is connected to the laser oscillator 1.
28 laser oscillation operations are controlled. The oscillator operation panel 404 receives commands from the cutting control unit 402, as well as
It can also be operated by manual operation by an operator.

The head drive operation panel 406 is connected to the head drive device 4.
12. This head drive device 41
2 includes a swing means drive section 113 and a cursor drive section 115. This head drive operation panel 406 is also operated not only by commands from the cutting control section 402 but also by manual operations by an operator.

Servo controller 408 is connected to head drive 412. That is, the head drive device 412 is driven based on data input from the head drive operation panel 406 and the servo controller 408, and the scanning of the laser beam RB is controlled.

The conveyor drive device 410 is for driving the slat conveyor 102. The conveyor drive device 410, the fabric spreading device 104, and the scrap processing device 108 operate in a certain manner based on commands from the cutting control section 402, and the fabric 104 is
are sent onto the slat conveyor 102 depending on the degree of processing.

Next, the overall operation of the above embodiment will be explained.

First, based on data input from the processing device 300, the cutting control unit 402 operates the fabric spreading device 104 and the conveyor drive device 410, thereby displacing the original fabric roll 10 on the slat conveyor 102.
6, the fabric 100 is sent out.

On the other hand, from the cutting control unit 402 to the oscillator operation panel 40
An operation command is output to the transmitter 132, the laser oscillator 128 starts oscillation, and the laser beam is transmitted to the transmitter 132,
The beam reaches the condensing device 112 via the beam expanding means 134 . Then, the light is irradiated so as to be focused on the fabric 100.

At this time, operation commands are outputted from the cutting control section 402 to the head drive operation panel 406 and the servo controller 408, and the head drive device 412 is driven. That is, the condensing device 112 is oscillated about the axis PX by the oscillating means driving section 113, and the cursor 11 is oscillated by the cursor driving section 115.
4 travels back and forth, and the laser beam RB scans the fabric 100 according to the pattern and marking determined by the processing device 300 at the previous stage (see FIG. 2).

Through the above operations, the fabric 100 is cut, and the fabric 100 is sent toward the scrap processing device 108 by the slat conveyor 102. At this time, the scrap processing device 108 is driven based on an operation command from the cutting control section 402. The cut fabrics 100A, 100B are collected from the slat conveyor 102 by an operator or other automatic machine, and the scraps are collected by the scrap processing device 1.
It is housed in 08.

In addition, the objects to be processed include fabrics, leather, etc.
It may be made of metal, plastic, etc., but it goes without saying that in the above embodiments, a flexible material is preferable. If it does not have such characteristics,
The slat conveyor 102 is configured to be flat as shown in FIG. Furthermore, when the workpiece has a relatively small area, it is placed directly on the slat conveyor 102.

〔Effect of the invention〕

As explained above, according to the laser processing apparatus according to the present invention, there is a reflecting mirror attached to the end of the swing axis so as to be inclined with respect to a two-dimensional plane, and the reflected light from this reflecting mirror is It has a concave mirror that condenses light, and irradiates the workpiece by swinging the laser light transmitted from the laser light source via the transmission line and incident on the reflecting mirror in the direction of the first coordinate axis by rotating the swing axis. The condensing device is moved in the direction of a second coordinate axis orthogonal to the first coordinate axis, and the operation of scanning the laser beam is controlled based on a predetermined processing pattern. Beam expanding means is provided for expanding the beam diameter of the laser beam incident on the condenser to a beam diameter corresponding to the focal length of the concave mirror so that the spot diameter on the processing surface of the workpiece becomes a desired value. Therefore, the condenser can use a long-focus concave mirror, and when the laser beam is oscillated in the direction of the first coordinate axis, the rotation range of the oscillation axis is smaller than when using a concave mirror with a short focal length. Even if the same, the range of processing of the workpiece can be enlarged.
Therefore, there is an effect that machining can be performed at high speed and noise and vibration are reduced.

Further, when a long focal length concave mirror is used, the depth of focus becomes deep, and the effect of defocus on the workpiece can be reduced. Therefore, even if the laser beam is oscillated, the effect on processing accuracy can be reduced.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing an example of a conventional laser processing device, FIG. 2 is a perspective view showing an embodiment of the laser processing device according to the present invention, and FIG. 3 is a simplified version of the device shown in FIG. FIG. 4 is an explanatory view showing the configuration of a condensing device and beam expanding means, and FIG. 5 is a block diagram of a processing control device in an embodiment of the present invention. In the figure, 100 is a fabric, 102 is a slat conveyor, 112 is a condenser, 114 is a cursor, and 12
0 is a convex mirror, 122 is a concave mirror A, 124 is a mirror, 126 is a concave mirror B, 128 is a laser oscillator,
130 is an optical means, 132 is a transmission body, 134 is a beam expanding means, 102A is a curved part, 200 is a processing control device, PX is a swing axis, Y is a cursor 114
The traveling direction of , RB is the laser beam. Note that the same reference numerals in the figures indicate the same or equivalent parts.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. In a laser processing device that processes a workpiece supported on a support table by irradiating the workpiece with laser light while scanning the workpiece two-dimensionally, the swing axis comprises: has a reflecting mirror attached to the end thereof at an angle with respect to the two-dimensional plane, and a concave mirror that collects the reflected light from the reflecting mirror, and the laser beam is transmitted from the laser light source via the transmission path. A condensing device that irradiates the workpiece by swinging the laser beam incident on the reflecting mirror in the direction of a first coordinate axis by rotation of a swing axis; a driving device that causes the laser beam to travel in the direction of the coordinate axis; and a control means that controls the condensing device and the driving device so that the laser beam draws a predetermined pattern on the workpiece; The beam expanding means expands the beam diameter of the laser beam incident on the condensing device to a beam diameter corresponding to the focal length of the concave mirror so that the spot diameter on the processing surface of the workpiece becomes a desired value. A laser processing device characterized by the following. 2. The laser processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the support base includes a curved portion forming an arc with respect to the center of the swing axis.