Significantly greater productivity — ranging from 20% to 40%, depending on the specific application — and improved quality are among the advantages reported by early adopters of the latest generation of GF Laser Workstation Software from Coventry-based GF Machining Solutions Ltd (www.gfms.com/uk).

Furthermore, initial results also indicate that customers using the optional software suite supplied with Smartpatch technology — an advanced laser texturing patching solution — can increase texturing speeds by up to 30%.

Laser texturing can be used to apply a myriad of different decorative and functional textures to workpieces by using a laser beam to remove workpiece material layer by layer via a non-polluting and non-contact process.

However, to date, even the most advanced laser texturing solutions have forced manufacturers to make some compromises
between quality and productivity.

This is because most existing laser texturing machines randomly apply textures to the workpiece surface, working from one area to the next, to remove material in patches, but movement can create positional deviations from the desired texture design because of thermal changes in the environment around the machine.

This can result in undesirable lines appearing along the perimeters of patches and/or the distortion of textured details. However, with its GF Laser Work-station Software 1.8.0 Smartpatch technology, GFMS has overcome these problems — as confirmed by a demonstration on a stainless-steel part featuring a complex honeycomb ‘texture’.

When laser texturing the part using standard laser processes, 30 more patches were required than when the Smartpatch technology was used.

This is because a standard laser process will machine a texture fromthe first layer to the last one, whereas Smartpatch will detect a ‘pocket’ (one area where the texture could be unlinked and where the texture’s detail can be realised in a single movement), make a patch around it and execute all the layers of this pocket to finish it, often requiring fewer layers than were needed in the past.

The intelligence embedded in the software reduces machine movements by analysing the desired texture in advance and manages the machining process to eliminate movement-induced deviations from the desired texture; this embedded intelligence means that the random application of textures is eliminated, because the laser head movement is minimised.