JPH0322278B2 - - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION Field of Industrial Application The present invention relates to a laser processing machine that processes materials using laser light.

Conventional Structure and its Problems Generally, a laser processing machine is composed of a laser oscillator and a processing station including an optical system for condensing laser light.

When configuring a production system using a laser processing machine, it is necessary to enable processing at several locations at the same time. A conventional laser processing machine will be explained below.

The first conventional example using a beam splitter is
This will be explained using FIG. FIG. 1 is an overview diagram showing the configuration of a first conventional example, and FIG. 2 is a chart diagram of laser oscillation waveforms and laser pulse waveforms supplied to each processing station.

In FIGS. 1 and 2, 101 is a laser oscillator, 102 is a first beam splitter that transmits half of the laser beam and reflects half of it, 103 is a second beam splitter, 104 is a third beam splitter, 105 is the first total reflection mirror, 106 is the second
107 is a first processing station, 108 is a second processing station, 109 is a third processing station, and 110 is a fourth processing station. Also, 111, 112, 11
3, 114, 115, 116, and 117 are laser beams.

Laser light 1 output from laser oscillator 101
11 is split by a first beam splitter 102 into a laser beam 112 and a laser beam 113. The laser beam 112 is split into a laser beam 114 and a laser beam 115 by a second beam splitter 103.
The laser beam 114 is totally reflected by the first total reflection mirror 105 and supplied to the first processing station 107 . Laser light 115 is supplied as is to second processing station 108 . Similarly, the laser beam 113 is split into a laser beam 116 and a laser beam 117 by a third beam splitter 104, the laser beam 116 is supplied to a third processing station 109, and the laser beam 117 is supplied to a second total reflection mirror 1.
06 and the fourth processing station 1
10. In this way, it is possible to process four locations at the same time. However, the laser beam splitting method using the beam splitter described above has the following problems.

First, a laser oscillator 101 as shown in FIG.
If the laser oscillation output a is 1, then the first to fourth
Since the output b of the laser light supplied to each processing station 107 to 110 passes through the beam splitter twice, the power is reduced to 1/4. This means that
If it is desired to install four 500W processing stations, the laser oscillator 101 will need a high output laser of at least 2KW.

Second, the laser beams split by the beam splitter all have the same oscillation frequency. Therefore,
The processing conditions of each processing station cannot be changed.

Thirdly, there is energy loss of the laser beam due to the beam splitter.

Next, a second conventional example using a rotating chopper mirror will be explained. When using a rotating chopper mirror, there is no practical problem if the laser beam is split into two and one oscillator is used to perform simultaneous processing at two processing stations. When machining is performed simultaneously at a large number of machining stations using a machine, a number of problems arise. This is the third
This will be explained using FIG. FIG. 4 is an overview diagram showing the configuration of this conventional example, and FIG. 4 shows a chart of oscillation waveforms and laser pulse waveforms supplied to each processing station.

In FIG. 3, 201 is a laser oscillator;
2 is a first rotating chopper mirror having window portions and mirror portions arranged alternately, 203 is a second rotating chopper mirror having the same structure, 204 is a third rotating chopper mirror having the same structure, and 205 is rotating the first rotating chopper mirror 202. a first drive unit, 206
207 is a second driving unit that rotates the second rotating chopper mirror 203; 207 is a third driving unit that rotates the second rotating chopper mirror 204; 208;
209 is a second sensor that detects the window and mirror portion of the second rotating chopper mirror 203; 210 is a third sensor that detects the window and mirror portion of the first rotating chopper mirror 208; A third sensor 211 detects the window portion and the mirror portion of the rotating chopper mirror 204, and the output waveforms from the first sensor 208, the second sensor 209, and the third sensor 210 indicate that the first drive unit 2
05, second drive section 206, third drive section 207
a control unit 212, 213, 21 that controls the rotation of the laser oscillator 201 and controls the laser oscillation of the laser oscillator 201;
4, 215, 216 are laser beams, 217 is a total reflection mirror, 218 is a first processing station, 21
9 is a second processing station, 220 is a third processing station, and 221 is a fourth processing station.

First processing station 218, second processing station 219, third processing station 22
0. When performing simultaneous machining at the fourth machining station 221, the control unit 211 first controls the first drive unit 205, the second drive unit 206, and the third drive unit 2.
07, the first rotating chopper mirror 20
2. The second rotating chopper mirror 203 and the third rotating chopper mirror 204 are rotated synchronously.
After confirming the synchronous rotation, the laser oscillator 201 is oscillated with the desired waveform. The laser beam 212 emitted from the laser oscillator 201 is transmitted to the first rotating chopper mirror 2.
02, the laser beam 213 is supplied to a first processing station 218. 1st
The laser light that has passed through the window of the rotating chopper mirror 202 is transmitted to the next rotating chopper mirror 20.
The laser beam 214 that is stopped at the mirror part 3 and reflected by the mirror part is sent to the second processing station 219.
supplied to Furthermore, the laser beam that has passed through the window section is chopped by the next third rotating chopper mirror 204, and the laser beam 204 is reflected by the mirror section.
15 is fed to a third processing station 220. The last remaining laser beam 216 is totally reflected by a total reflection mirror 217 and sent to the fourth processing station 2.
21.

The laser beam branching method using the rotating chopper mirror described above has the following problems.

First, when a rotating chopper mirror is connected,
The pulse duty ratio of the laser light supplied to each processing station is severely limited. Figure 4 shows the duty ratio of the laser oscillation pulse,
The maximum 40% (shown in a) shows the case where a rotating chopper mirror designed to allow chopping is used. According to this, the pulse duty ratio of the laser light supplied to each processing station is 10% at maximum, as shown in b to e. As a result, the pulse duty ratio is considerably limited only by connecting the rotating chopper mirror. Second, as the number of connected rotating chopper mirrors increases, synchronous rotation control becomes more difficult.

Thirdly, if it is desired to increase the machining frequency, it is necessary to rotate the rotary chopper mirror at high speed.

Purpose of the Invention The purpose of the present invention is to solve the above-mentioned problems and to provide a laser processing machine that significantly increases the operating rate of the laser oscillator body in order to widely use the laser processing machine as a production system. do.

Structure of the Invention One laser oscillator, a plurality of processing stations, a laser beam optical path splitter including a total reflection mirror, a beam splitter, and a positioning mechanism, a plurality of rotating chopper mirrors, and a plurality of drives for rotating the rotating chopper mirrors. a sensor that detects the window portion and the mirror portion of the rotating chopper mirror; and a control portion that controls laser oscillation based on the output waveform of the sensor and controls the laser beam optical path splitter and the drive portion. The present invention provides a laser processing machine that can perform simultaneous processing using a plurality of processing stations and greatly increases the operating rate of the laser oscillator body.

DESCRIPTION OF EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 5 shows an embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 2 is an overview diagram showing the configuration of a laser processing machine that uses one laser oscillator to perform processing at four processing stations.

In FIG. 5, 301 is a laser oscillator;
2 is a first rotating chopper mirror having a window portion and a mirror portion; 303 is a first rotating chopper mirror 3;
304 is a first rotating chopper mirror 302;
305 is a second rotating chopper mirror having the same shape as the first rotating chopper mirror 302; 306 is a second sensor that detects the window and mirror portion of the second rotating chopper mirror 305; , 307 is a second driving unit that rotates the second rotating chopper mirror 305;
8 is a laser beam optical path splitter that branches the laser beam 309 output from the laser oscillator 301 into either a first branching direction 310 or a second branching direction 311 or both directions. As shown in FIG. 6, the laser beam optical path splitter 308 includes a first total reflection mirror 3 that totally reflects the laser beam 309 in a first branching direction 310.
12. A beam splitter 313 that bidirectionally splits the laser beam 309 into a first branching direction 310 and a second branching direction 311, and a second total reflection mirror that totally reflects the laser beam 309 in the second branching direction 311. 314, a positioning mechanism 315 for setting the first total reflection mirror 312, the beam splitter 313, and the second total reflection mirror 314 at arbitrary positions.

The rotating chopper mirrors 302 and 305 have a window portion 328 that transmits laser light, as shown in a side view in FIG.
and a mirror portion 329 that reflects laser light. This rotating chopper mirror is inserted into a rotating shaft 330 and held between flanges 331.

Further, in FIG. 5, 316 is a control section;
The first driving section 304 and the second driving section 307 are controlled based on the output waveforms of the sensor 303 and the second sensor 306, and the first rotating chopper mirror 302 and the second rotating chopper mirror 305 are rotated synchronously. It also controls the laser oscillation of the laser oscillator 301, and controls the laser beam optical path splitter 308.
It has a function of selecting one of the first total reflection mirror 312, beam splitter 313, and second total reflection mirror 314 by controlling an external actuator that moves the positioning mechanism 315 (see FIG. 6).

Furthermore, 317 is a laser beam 31 branched in a first branching direction 310 by the laser beam optical path splitter 308.
8 is chipped by the first rotating chopper mirror 302, and the laser beam 319 is reflected by the mirror part.
The first processing station 320 is supplied with a laser beam 322 in which the laser beam 318 passes through the window of the first rotating mirror 302 and the laser beam 321 is totally reflected by the third total reflection mirror 322. A second processing station 323 is a laser beam 324 in which a laser beam 324 is branched in a second branching direction 311 by a laser beam path splitter 308 and is chopped by a second rotating chopper mirror 305.
a third processing station, 326, supplied with 5;
is the remaining laser beam 32 after the laser beam 324 is chopped by the second rotating chopper mirror 305.
5 is a fourth processing station to which a laser beam 327 totally reflected by a fourth total reflection mirror 326 is supplied.

The operation of the laser processing machine configured as described above will be described below.

When the laser beam optical path distributor 308 is set to the beam splitter 313, the first, second, third, and fourth processing stations 317, 320, 323, 32
6 will have the same processing ability. In this case, since a beam splitter is used at one location, processing will be performed at 1/2 of the output of the laser oscillator 301, but since a rotating chopper mirror is used,
The first and third processing stations 317 and 323 and the second and third processing stations 320 and 326 can perform processing by changing the processing conditions, and a laser oscillator with half the capacity of the laser oscillator 301 has four laser oscillators. It is equivalent to having a stand.

Further, when the laser beam optical path splitter 308 is set to the first total reflection mirror 312, simultaneous processing can be performed at the first and second processing stations 317 and 320.

When the laser beam optical path splitter 308 is set to the second total reflection mirror 314, the second and third processing stations 323 and 326 can also perform processing in the same manner as described above.

In these cases, since a beam splitter is not used, processing can be performed using the full power of the laser oscillator 301, and only one rotating chopper mirror can be used.
Since only the stand is involved, no problems occur under normal processing conditions.

Furthermore, as the structure of the rotating chopper mirror is shown in FIG. 7, it is characterized by splitting the laser beam into two directions without attenuating the pulse peak power of the laser beam. The shape of the mirror section is designed based on the laser beam diameter, pulse duty ratio, and rotation speed, so it does not necessarily satisfy all processing conditions. Therefore, if processing is desired under special processing conditions (for example, pulse duty ratio is 40% or more), the rotating chopper mirrors 302 and 305 can be used simply as total reflection mirrors in this embodiment. In this case, the number of machining stations that can be processed is limited to one location, but by sequentially using the remaining machining stations, the workpiece setting time can be shortened and the operating rate can be increased.

As described above, in this example, by using a laser beam optical path splitter that combines a total reflection mirror and a beam splitter in combination with a rotating chopper mirror, the processing ability of the laser oscillator is fully utilized to achieve an extremely high operating rate. We can provide high quality laser processing machines.

Effects of the Invention In summary, the present invention includes a laser oscillator, a laser beam optical path splitter including a total reflection mirror, a beam splitter, and a positioning mechanism, a plurality of rotating chopper mirrors, a plurality of drive units that rotate the rotating chopper mirrors, and a rotating chopper mirror. a sensor that detects the window portion and the mirror portion of the chopper mirror; and controlling laser oscillation based on the output waveform of the sensor;
In addition, the present invention provides a laser processing machine that includes a control unit that controls the laser beam optical path splitter and the drive unit, and can significantly increase the operating rate of the laser oscillator main body.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is an overview diagram showing the configuration of a first conventional example of a laser processing machine, and FIG. 2 is a chart diagram of laser oscillation waveforms and laser pulse waveforms supplied to each processing station in the first conventional example. 3 is an overview diagram showing the configuration of a second conventional example of a laser processing machine, and FIG. 4 is a chart diagram of laser oscillation waveforms and laser pulse waveforms supplied to each processing station in the second conventional example. FIG. 5 is a general view of a laser processing machine in an embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 6 is a perspective view of a laser beam optical path splitter in the embodiment, and FIG.
Figure a is a side view of the rotating chopper mirror in the embodiment, and figure b is a sectional view taken along line A-A' in figure a. 301... Laser oscillator, 302... First rotating chopper mirror, 303... First sensor, 304... First drive unit, 305... Second rotating chopper mirror, 306... Second sensor, 307 ...Second driving unit, 308...Laser beam optical path splitter, 310...First branching direction, 31
1... Second branching direction, 312... First total reflection mirror, 313... Beam splitter, 314
... Second total reflection mirror, 315 ... Positioning mechanism, 316 ... Control unit, 317 ... First processing station, 320 ... Second processing station, 323 ... Third processing station, 326
...Fourth processing station, 328...Window section,
329...Mirror part.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A laser oscillator that generates a laser beam, at least one total reflection mirror and a beam splitter arranged so as to be arbitrarily selected, a laser beam optical path splitter that distributes the laser beam from the laser oscillator, and A plurality of rotating chopper mirrors that transmit or reflect laser light from an optical path splitter, a drive unit that rotates the rotating chopper mirrors, a sensor that detects a window portion and a mirror portion of the rotating chopper mirrors, and an output waveform of the sensor. What is claimed is: 1. A laser processing machine comprising: a control section that controls a laser oscillator, a laser beam optical path splitter, and a drive section based on the following.