A wide variety of products to be manufactured for nameplates, membrane switches, flex circuits can be die cut or laser cut on a Spartanics cutting system.
The system configuration for die cutting these products is separated into two basic approaches: one for processing rolls of web material, and one for processing sheeted material.
For sheeted materials, the material can be fed into our die cutting system by our Automatic Sheet Feeder, by our Autocutter, or by our M73 Strip Starter. Our Automatic Sheet Feeder and our Autocutter handle an 18” (46 cm) high stack, and sheet sizes can be up to 29” x 30” (73 cm x 76 cm). The Automatic Sheet Feeder simply feeds the sheets without any cutting into the die cutting press. The Autocutter can be used to cut the sheets into strips or to perform edge trimming before feeding the material into the die cutting press.
When material either uncut or cut by the Autocutter is fed into the press, the material will be accurately positioned in the press by a registration feed that corrects for XY or XY & rotation errors in printing. The material is now positioned correctly in die, and the mechanical press will cycle and cut the desired parts. If the parts are cut using a steel rule die, they will remain inserted in the sheeted material. Various types of modules exist to remove these parts and discard the residual scrap sheets—parts extractors and pneumatic knockouts are commonly used. Using a standard male/female hard tool die results in the die cut parts being pushed through the die and onto a conveyor in a shingled fashion eliminating the need for part extraction
A basic system for die cutting a variety of nameplates, membrane switches, flex circuits in the form of sheeted materials consists of the following modules:
1. M95 Autocutter or M96 Automatic Sheet Feeder or M73 Strip Starter
2. Mechanical Die Cutting Press
3. X, Y or X, Y & Rotation Axis Registration Feed
4. Steel Rule Die is customarily used
5. Part Extraction or Pneumatic Knock Outs
6. Sheet Removal Module
For rolled web materials, the material can be feed into the die cutting system by our Automatic Unwinding Module which accurately controls the slack loop of material between the Unwinder and the Mechanical Die Cutting Press.
When the web material is fed into the press, the material will be correctly positioned in the press by a registration feed that corrects for XY or XY & rotation errors in printing. The material is now positioned correctly in die, and the mechanical press will cycle and cut the desired parts. If the parts are cut using a steel rule die, they will remain inserted in the waste material. Various types of modules exist to remove these parts and discard the residual scrap web—parts extractors and pneumatic knockouts are commonly used. Using a standard male/female hard tool die results in the die cut parts being pushed through the die and onto a conveyor in a shingled fashion thus eliminating the need for part extraction.
A basic system for die cutting a variety of part configurations from web materials consists of the following modules:
1. Unwinding Module for roll web material
2. Mechanical Die Cutting Press
3. X, Y or X, Y & Rotation Axis Registration Feed
4. Steel Rule Die is customarily used
5. Waste Material Removal-Weeding
6. Rewinding Module for Web Material with parts
Laser cutting systems are frequently an excellent alternative to the use of die cutting systems to produce nameplates, membrane switches, and flex circuits . Laser cutting is normally performed on a wide array of materials that are in web or sheet form where it is desired to cut a complex part. Abrasives, polycarbonates, vinyls, adhesives, paper, thin flimsy materials and many other materials that are difficult to cut to cut by die cutting are good applications.
Intricate part shapes and sharp corners without burnouts can be cut with the Spartanics Finecut Laser Systems because our proprietary software provides truly outstanding control of the laser beam during cutting.
Quick change-overs from one job to the next are possible by our easy to use Finecut software which controls all system settings from cut-path to laser power to web tension, in a single integrated control environment. Jobs are saved and recalled with all of their settings-camera registration, lamination pressure, slitting, cutting, rewind tension and batch sizes-as one easy-to-access job file. As a result, it is now possible to do prototyping or run very small jobs on these systems because of the economies provided by this fast job turnaround.
Cut-Path drawings can be generated in a variety of CAD and Illustrator programs and imported directly by the Finecut System software as common DXF and DWG files. Lasers with power ratings ranging from 100 watts up to 1000 watts, spot sizes down to 210 microns in size, and working areas to 600 x 600 are configurable to excel in your applications for kiss cutting, through cutting, engraving, serial numbering, scoring, and perforating providing quality and speed to meet today’s demanding requirements.
A typical system for laser cutting is shown below for cutting a variety of configurations of Plastic parts from either sheeted or roll fed materials :
1. Insertion module to introduce material to the laser cutter; web fed, sheet fed, or both.
2. 200 Watt sealed CO2 laser with water cooling.
3. 350 x 350 mm (13.8 x 13.8”) effective cutting area.
4. Parts Extractor for sheets, and Parts Extractor, pneumatic part knock out along with material rewinding for web material.
5. For sheeted material, a Sheet Removal Module to extract the freshly cut sheets from the laser cutter.
Options include:
Slitting, waste material stripping (weeding), pressure laminating, and fume scrubbing.
The post Nameplates, Membrane Switches, Flex Circuits can be printed with Spartanics-Systec Screen Printing Lines and die cut with Spartanics Laser Cutting Machines or Spartanics Die Cutting Systems appeared first on Spartanics.
