Scientists at the Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology ILT have developed a crucial addition to punching contacts. As part of the ERDF research project ScanCut, the Aachen-based company, together with industrial partners from North Rhine-Westphalia, has developed a hybrid manufacturing process for laser cutting thin-walled metal strips, which means that even tiny details of contact parts can be manufactured in an environmentally friendly, highly precise and efficient manner.
Laser cutting opens up previously unrealizable design options, particularly when creating contacting areas with several independently resilient contact points in the smallest of spaces. A further addition is helical drilling with ultrashort pulse lasers (USP lasers): Fraunhofer ILT's patented process has already proven itself in precision micro-drilling with a high aspect ratio in steel, glass and ceramics. In the ScanCut project, helical drilling optics were used together with a multi-beam module from Pulsar Photonics GmbH and a high-power beam source from Amphos GmbH. This made it possible to combine the precision and quality of the helical drilling process with the productivity of multi-beam processing.
The project partners paid particular attention to automation. Electrically adjustable mirror and optics holders enable automatic beam position adjustment. Thanks to an appropriately programmed software routine, the adjustment of the helical drilling optics can be started at the touch of a button.
