Laser Cutting Down Under with SINUMERIK 840D for BLS Australia


The Australian company Bristow Laser System has developed a new generation of laser cutting machines using the latest Siemens SINUMERIK 840D CNC Control and software tools.

Combining the SINUMERIK 840D, SIMODRIVE 611D digital servodrives, 1FN3 linear servomotors and MMC103 industrial PC enabled Bristow Laser Systems to introduce a new machine for the world market.

On this machine the new Siemens function for contour retrace is used for the first time and is of great interest to the jobshop market. This function enables the operator to trace back along the contour if a malfunction to the cutting quality occurs. Once the desired position has been reached the contour retrace will be cancelled and the cutting operation will be resumed in the forward motion.

A large amount of time has been devoted to the development of a user friendly operating interface. The software tools MMC Easy Mask, for design of custom displays and Easy Trans for database management have enabled integration of the operating system in the MMC103.

Excellent cost to performace ratio of the new 1FN3 Linear motors was one of the reasons why Bristow Laser Systems has standardised on linear motor technology with axis speeds up to 80 m/min.

This machine concept has been developed over a number of years based on the strong relationship between CNC Design and Bristow Laser Systems. CNC Design provided extensive engineering and software tools.