Transcript:
– Oh, that’s awesome. That is so cool. Today, we’re at a metal cutting laser factory, that can cut metal this thick. Fire it up. (upbeat music) I have been wanting to see a metal cutting laser for a long time now. And so when Bestcutter offered to sponsor me to come up to their supplier here in Jinan, China to see how they make these giant metal cutting fiber lasers, I jumped to the opportunity. Chuming, thank you so much for having me. – Thank you for visiting. – And I wanna see how they make these giant machines but first I think we better fire this one up and see what it can do. – Okay. – I have a couple ideas. One is one I came up with and one is what Twitter came up with when I asked them what we should cut, which it’s a funny one. I did a project earlier this year where we went to a factory that made metal business cards for me, for “Strange Parts.” And I did it entirely because I thought they cut these out with a laser like this one, but it turns out they don’t use lasers, they use chemicals. If you guys haven’t seen that video you can click on it up here, but I still really wanna see a metal business card cut with a laser. So I was wondering if that’s something that we can do on your machine. – Yeah, absolutely. – What’s the first step here? – Kevin’s the operator, he can help you. – Okay, awesome, hi Kevin. So it looks like you’ve already got my design loaded up here. Cut this. – Okay. – And then etch this mark this. – So you need a set of two layers? – Ah, okay, yep. So we can have different settings for each layer. Oh, you’ve got it all configured in here for the material already. So we’re just dialing in the speed and how much power and how high is the card. (indistinct) Yep, I hear the beeping. – Yeah. Yeah. – Oh, that’s the laser. – Laser, yes. – Okay. Oh, there we go. Oh, that’s so cool. Oh, that looks great. Let’s see how we did. Yeah, maybe darker on the… – Its not clear, we need to change the parameter. – Yeah, make it stronger. This is pretty cool. It’s got much sharper edges than the one that was chemically etched. Let’s compare these side by side. It’s pretty darn close. Oh, you’re switching cutting gases. Switching to oxygen. So what’s the difference between oxygen and nitrogen in terms of what you…? – If you want to cut carbon steel, like this carbon steel you use oxygen. If you cut stainless steel, aluminum brass, uses nitrogen. – Still dialing it in. – Hey guys put that goggles on that can protect your eye. – Oh, okay good. – Yeah. – Pretty go. The super fine point on the laser… Success. That looked a lot better. Yeah. So we need somebody to poke out the layers. – Yes. – Yeah. Okay. So let’s look, side-by-side where’s the… This is the etched one, that looks pretty awesome. The same amount of detail between the two, you know what comes to mind though? This machine, this is a giant machine. – Yeah. – And we’re using it to make a tiny little business card. I think we should make a giant business card. – Giant? – Can we do that Chuming? – Yeah. – What if we made a card that was like, I don’t know like this big. – Okay, yeah. – And maybe can we get some thicker metal and really show like- – Okay. – I wanna see how thick this thing can cut. – For a thicker metal we have a higher power laser and we can come this way. This is our 12,000 wide laser machine with 8.5 foot by 20 foot. – So this is 20 feet deep here? – Yes. – Oh my God. – So we can cut a pretty large business card. How many foot do you want? – I think 20 foot might be too big. (both laughing) I was thinking like, I dunno like this big, something like that. – All right, yeah, that will do well. – So how thick can we cut? – We can cut about two inches. – So like that much. – Yeah. – Okay. Let’s do that – But that cut will be too heavy to lift. That will be over 100 pounds. – I wanna still be able to lift it. (Scotty laughing) – I think three eighth or half inch should be a good choice. – Okay. – We should have closed the door. – Yeah. – But like, we are only cutting a smaller piece with goggle but that’s not normal but a safe practice. – Right. So if this was in a factory, we’d close the door. – Yeah. – Yeah. Okay. But this is okay if we’re just wearing glasses. – Yeah. – Yeah. All right. Oh my God, it’s super loud. Okay, so marking out the youtube.com/StrangeParts. Whoa. Oh my God. I can see why you wanna close the door. Like being at a campfire. Oh man. It’s so precise, even though it’s still cutting so big and so thick. Oh, that’s awesome. That is so cool. Look at that. That came out super good. Yeah, I’m worried it’s hot. – No you still can touch it. That’s a beauty of a laser. With very little heat impact zone. It’s good for you to do welding. – This is awesome. Let’s poke these out. That’s pretty awesome. Look at that. – You can’t put that in your wallet. – That’s kind of awkward. I feel like I want a handle on top so that I can carry it like a briefcase to work. – Okay. – So I can carry it to meetings and be like, here’s my business card. – Okay. – So I drew the most basic handle. We’ve got it loaded up and you have it all. I like your glasses, it makes you look like a rapper. Are we good? Are we ready? – Yeah, we’re ready. – That was super fast. Here we go. Yeah. It seems pretty good. So like here. That looks good, right? – It look like suitcase. – Yeah, that was, yeah. We need to attach it. – Yeah, we have a fiber laser welding machine. – Oh. – We can weld this to that. – Oh yeah, totally. So we had a little bit of a problem. The laser welder demo machine that they had is out of calibration a little bit. So we had to wait and we’re at a different, their old factory location that has a working demo unit. Today this morning, we’ll weld it here and then we’ll go back over to the other factory. So come with me. So can you teach me how to do this? – Okay, of course. – I’ve welded a little bit but never with a laser welder. – If you press this button and then we’ll start to weld. – Okay. So the laser will come out? – Yeah. – Wow, that looks really easy. That’s way cleaner than like a Migweld or even a tig weld. It’s gorgeous. – Oh, its beauty, oh. – Is it good? – Very good. – What do you think Chuming? Can I come work at your laser welding shop? – This very good. – Can we try it with this one? – Okay. – So higher power now. Yeah? High power. – High power. – That’s pretty good. All right, so I’ll probably tak, tak, tak, tak ,tak, maybe one, two three, one, two, three, and then one, two, three slow. – Yeah. Yeah slow. – Okay. All right. (upbeat music) – The other side. – The other side, yeah. Need to touch the metal? – If you don’t touch it don’t run. – Oh, is that for safety? – Yeah. – Yes. – Oh, got it. Okay. I was wondering how if I push the button it doesn’t shoot into the camera person’s eyes. Okay, so now align? Okay, I’m gonna do it on the back first in case I screw it up. – It’s okay. – Okay? Deep enough? – Yes. – For strong enough? It’s not super pretty, but it’s not bad. And then do the sides or you think? (upbeat music) It’s not hot? – It’s not hot here. – Yeah. – All right. It’s accessible, thank you for teaching me. This is super cool. Now I can be a proper businessman with my business card briefcase on my way to a meeting. – Okay. This is super awesome. This is so cool. I got one more test for you. I still don’t think we’re properly showing off what your laser cutter can do. So let’s go back to the other factory where we we’ve got the showroom. I have the idea from Twitter that I wanted to show you. I asked Twitter what we should cut. This is what they said. – Oh. – What do you think? – It’s good. – I’m thinking like, we cut it like this thick. This is made out of stainless steel and it’s all the rage right now. Some people love it. Some people hate it. I don’t know what to think of it. Like maybe this thick and cut it like this big out of stainless steel. – Yeah, if you have the drawing, yeah. – Okay. All right. I did do a drawing last night. Maybe we can load it up. Okay. Yeah, that looks good to me. You set off camera, we only have one shot to get this right. Because we only have enough nitrogen gas for one cut. Is that right? – Yes. – Okay, so we better hope that we got all the settings correct. – Yes. – All right, I’m ready. Let’s do it. Do you know what happened? We had to stop, but I don’t know why. – So what’s happening was when they cut a straight line everything fine. But when they are making turn the gas didn’t have enough time to evaporate from the liquid the form. So after the corner, we may need to make pause. So give it a little time. We need a bigger evaporator in such a situation. – So the machine is fine, it’s just the gas supply that’s not specked out for this. – Right. – Yeah. Okay. Just cause it’s a demo room, so yeah. – The evaporator need a bigger size. – Got it. So we’ve got the nitrogen tank here, right? – Yeah. – And that’s liquid nitrogen? Oh yeah, you can see. Oh, this was not frosted up before, oh, wow. – So Kevin now is looking for a new spot for a redo the cutting. So earlier because the gas couldn’t keep up and if they continue there will be more stuff being blown up from that. – Okay, so you can’t start again from you can’t keep going. – Yeah, we need a new spot. I only got that (indistinct). – So we’re gonna make another one. – Yeah. – Yeah. All right. – Okay. – Ready? Got it through? – We’ve done. – Finished? All Right. – Yeah. – Awesome. I present to you the world’s first miniature cyber truck. Well, there you go Twitter, cyber truck cut out of stainless steel alloy. Similar to what the real cyber truck is made out of. So I think we’ve been having a lot of fun running this laser cutter, but I think it’s time we go see how they’re made. – Okay. – So we head over to the factory? – Okay. All right. – All right, great. – In this room workers are cutting up the pipe and weld to them for their frame to the heavy duty bed. (indistinct) support of the machines. – Got it. It is so loud in here. We’re having a hard time even hearing each other. This is really cool. So is this just heavy duty iron work or steelwork? Well, let’s go take a close-up look at what some of these guys are doing. (upbeat music) – This is a sheet of metal section where we lay rhe cut metal sheet and (indistinct) the press brake to form them into the cabinet and shouting for the machine. For example this is the cabinet for computer monitor and some electronics. – For like they control electronics for the machine. A lot of precise bending and welding going on. (upbeat music) This is an example of what you would bend on a press brake. This has some sharp corners here and then this nice arc on it. It’s meant to fit this piece here and then this will all be welded up. This piece would start as some sort of laser cut shape and then they’ll stick it in the press break and bend it up into whatever shape it’s gonna be. (upbeat music) Chuming, what is this? This is super cool. This is center and this machine will grind the top of the surface of the bed that very flat. So later (indistinct) around here . – Got it. – For the country to write on later. – Got it. So this has to be perfectly flat so that the machine is accurate. – Yes. – Yeah. – It’s a very crucial step to ensure the accuracy. – Yeah, this is awesome. This is, I think the largest CNC mill I’ve ever seen. And this is the small one in here. There’s a larger one over here that they’re setting up for a new job that sunken down into the floor, it’s so big. – Right. – Okay, what is this? – This is powder cooling room. – Okay. It’s like paint? – Yeah. – Okay. – So we use high voltage spray gun to spray the powder to the ground in the metal. – So it’s like a dry powder and it’s got like a static charge on it. – Yes. – And then it sticks to the grounded metal. – Right. – Got it. – After that we need high temperature to break it down. – Like an oven. – Yeah. – And that’s probably what this is. `- Yeah. – Holy smokes. This is a little bit scary. They’re so big. And then put it in the oven back here. That’s pretty awesome. – So after the powder coating, we put the parts to this room for final assembling. – So this is the frame that we saw being built up over there and then the sheet metal and all of that we saw powder-coated. – Right. – Got it. So now it’s starting to look like a real machine. – Yes. (both laughing) – I got it. This room is filled with like laser cutters in various states of assembly. You’ve got one over here that looks like it’s more fully put together. So they’ve done a lot on this machine it looks like. The process of assembling this is very similar to the UV printer video that we did earlier this year. If you haven’t seen that you can click on it in the upper corner. We talked a lot about installing all the parts in a machine like this. We actually did that video together. That’s one of your other groups or other companies in the same group selling you your printers. But I wanted to talk, what’s different about this machine than like a UV printer? – Yeah, so for the basic mechanical or more XYZ they are pretty much the same. – Yeah. – The only is the other machine carry printhead. This one carry laser-head. – Okay. – This is the laser-head. – And so is this the laser? – No, is just a focusing beam. – Ah, okay. This is the laser in the box here. – Yeah, I think this 2000 wide. – So no like no glass tube, like a CO2 laser. – No, no. – Got it. And then it gets from here to there? – Right, through the fiber optics. – Right. Okay. – That’s how the fiber laser come from. That’s where the name fiber laser came from. – I thought it was how the laser was actually generated but it’s no, it’s the fact that it comes through a fiber optics. – Yeah. This is a water chiller. – Yeah. – For cooling the laser generator and the laser-heads. – Okay. And then what’s this big thing up here, is this part of this machine? – Yes, this is control cabinet where all the thermal motor drive and power connection. – Yeah, awesome. So Chuming I think everybody including me has a big questioned, which is how much does one of these machines cost? – This machine 10 to 12,000 wide, our price is half a million dollars. – Oh, wow. Okay. So this is no small investment. – No, however, compared to our competition, our price is about half. – Oh, wow. Okay. So it’s still a lot of money. What would you pay for one of the smaller machines? – The smaller one 1500 wide five by 10 table is about the 85,000. – Okay, and is that the smallest machine you make or do you have smaller ones? – We have smaller like a four by four fiber laser and four by three CO2 laser. – Okay. – That one is $11,000. – Okay, so that’s what people would more traditionally think of when they think of a laser cutter. – Right. – Like that you might have for cutting acrylic or wood or cardboard. – Yeah. – But not for metal. – No. – Yeah, okay, awesome. Where should people go if they wanna find out more about your machines or get in contact with you about buying one? – To our website, bestcutter.com. – Okay, awesome. And we’ll put a link to that down in the description if you wanna find out more. Thank you so much for having me. This has been an amazing adventure and thank you for all your patients and the patients from the factory here. We’ve been here for three days making this video and I know we’ve gotten a lot of people’s hair, so I really appreciate it. – You’re really welcome. – I’m Scotty from “Strange Parts.” I hope you enjoyed watching this video as much as I enjoyed making it. If you did, hit that subscribe button down below we’ve got a bunch more factory tours coming up soon. Stay tuned. I’ll see you again soon. (upbeat music)