How to avoid burnt edge when laser cutting white fabric |

CO2 laser cutters with automatic conveyor tables are extremely suitable for cutting textiles continuously. In particular, Cordura, Kevlar, nylon, non-woven fabric, and other technical textiles are cut by lasers efficiently and precisely. Contactless laser cutting is an energy-concentrated heat treatment, many fabricators worry about laser cutting white fabrics may encounter brownish burning edges and have a significant effect on the subsequent processing. Today, we will teach you a few tricks on how to avoid over-burning on light color fabric.

Common problems of laser cut textiles:

There are many kinds of cloth, natural or synthetic, woven or knitted. Different types of fabrics have different properties that can strongly influence how you laser cut your cloths. The problem of laser cutting white cloth mainly appears in white cotton cloth, dust-free cloth, light color fabric cloth containing animal fat, technical textiles which are made from petroleum, or other chemical components

1. The laser cutting edge is prone to yellowing, discoloration, hardening and scorching
2. Uneven cutting lines
3. Notched cutting pattern

>> laser cut cotton fabric

How to solve it?

▶ Over burning and rough cutting edge is mainly affected by power parameter setting, laser tube selection, exhaust fan and auxiliary blowing. Too much laser power or too slow cutting speed will cause the heat energy to concentrate too high at the same spot and scorch the fabric. Seeking the right balance between power and cutting speed solves most of the problems with the brownish cutting edges.

▶ The powerful exhausting system can remove the smoke from the cutting. The smoke contains tiny-size chemicals particles that tend to stick to the surrounding fabric. The secondary heating of these dusts will aggravate the yellowing of the cloth. Thus it’s important to get rid of the smoke in time

▶ The air blower shall also be adjusted with appropriate air pressure which can assist in cutting. As the air pressure blows away the smoke, it also puts extra pressure on the fabric, tearing it apart.

▶ When cutting fabric on honeycomb working table, the cutting lines may appear unevenly when the working table is not flat especially when the fabric is too soft and light. If you find out there is thick cutting line and think cutting line appear under the same parameter settings, you shall inspect the flatness of your working table.

▶ When there is cutting gap on your fabric piece after cutting, cleaning the working table is the best approach. Sometimes it’s necessary to lower the laser power percentage setting of Min Power to decrease the power on cutting corners.

We sincerely recommend that you look for more professional advice about cutting and engraving of textiles from MimoWork Laser before investing a CO2 laser machine and our special options for textile processing directly from the roll.