Flatbed Die Cutting Techniques

October 26, 2017

Flatbed die cutting technology has received its fair share of attention here and in other material forming essays. Today, however, we'll be used discussing flatbed die cutting techniques, not just the general principles. Waste conservation will get a mention, as will the expanded options that are arriving in larger manufacturing facilities. After all, industrial innovations have a habit of filtering down into the commercial sector, right?

Reviewing Flatbed Die Cutting Techniques

A dozen voices are bullying a material shaping company. The hard-pressed manager doesn't want anything to go wrong, plus he wants the best possible results, so he calls upon the company flatbed die cutting machine. This high-performance equipment stamps out exquisitely accurate shapes from all kinds of feedstock. A high-tolerance flat base sits stationary while the steel rule cutting die repeatedly slices shaped product pieces from the feed medium. Hydraulic cylinders cycle in the background so that the die rises and falls in a blur.

Contemporary Waste Management Strategies

Flatbed die cutting techniques rely on an absolutely clean base of operations, which means the blank waste sheets need to be eliminated before they obstruct the work cycle. One solution here is the implementation of a CAD (Computer Aided Design) draughting stage. Various layouts are experimented with when a CAD program is employed. In packaging technology, the 3D cartons and boxes can be reverse-engineered then pattern-matched along a two-dimensional plane so that the trimmings are minimized.

Feedback-Activated Stroke Adjustments

Well-defined cut paths are one thing, but even the most precisely engineered steel rule die cutter can move out of alignment. That's still a humanly undetectable error, but it's one that will influence the cut quality on a high-performing flatbed die cutting line. Remember, some of this gear requires precise engineering tolerances. We're talking about moving a single integer three or four places to the right of a decimal place, so there's no room for errors. This is why contemporary flatbed die cutting techniques now employ an active mechanism, a feature that regulates the cut on-the-fly. The cutting stroke then gains the ability to system-register the stroke and adjust the cut across all three dimensional planes.

Bleeding-edge tools make registration tolerances more controllable than ever before. Meanwhile, CAD programs and laser cutting heads are extrapolating the best possible flatbed die cutting techniques. Paired with mathematical algorithms, all but the smallest trimmings are eliminated from the waste elimination cycle. Finally, it's unlikely that lasers and computers will replace flatbed technology, but the die cutting format is adopting some of those modern engineering influences and creating a whole new family of hybrid devices.

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