LPKF enhances CuttingMaster depaneling system

LPKF has enhanced the performance of its LPKF CuttingMaster depaneling system with a newly developed laser source.

Initial applications demonstrate a significantly higher cutting speed and, as a result, an up to 25 per cent higher output. For users, this yields a whole new dimension for improving efficiency in this price-to-performance range.

It gives PCB manufacturers the full advantages of laser technology for the price of a milling machine.

Drawing on extensive expertise in both laser technology and depaneling, LPKF’s engineers have developed a special laser source that is now used in the latest addition to the CuttingMaster platform. It delivers precision and speed with high reliability. The time needed by the predecessor machine to cut a comparison sample in a 0.8 mm FR4 board with “FastCut” was already impressive at 7.3 seconds, but the new LPKF CuttingMaster 2122 does the job in just 5.9 seconds. That's a difference of nearly 20%, and it can even be more than that by using CleanCut technology. In the cutting of coverlayers, too, the new laser system achieves a considerable improvement for the price-to-performance ratio.

All laser machines of the LPKF CuttingMaster 2000 series are ideally suited to cutting of flexible, flex-rigid, and rigid PCBs – made of, for example, FR4, polyimide, or ceramics. With laser cutting, no mechanical or appreciable thermal stresses are introduced. Therefore, even sensitive substrates can be processed with high precision. Ablation products are directly extracted. The cutting channels are just a few µm wide for optimal panel area utilization.

Processing by the LPKF CuttingMaster is completely software-controlled. The layout files can be transferred to the machine with a click of the mouse – no lengthy changeover or prior elaborate tool manufacturing is required. Processing parameters and laser paths are adapted to take into account varying materials or cutting contours directly. The high level of automation of the compact system, which can be selected modularly depending on the application, results in high throughput and high repeatability.