Proel LaserBridge

vs.

Competitor's bridge

Beam Size and Construction

The Proel machine uses a custom-made advanced heavy-duty normalized steel bridge that is designed especially by Proel engineers to handle the various operations and configurations of a moveable laser.  Our bridge can handle the weight and movement of a laser shuttle that is up to 400W.  It is made to handle travel speed of the shuttle that is up to 100 Meters/Minute (330feet/min).  It is also made to withstand any stress and does not suffer thermal expansion.  This construction helps maintain accurate travel for the laser shuttle on the bridge at high speeds and maintains consistency of laser beam placement on the garment throughout the entire year.  We guarantee it.

Our competitor’s machine uses an “off the shelf” beam that is not designed for that high speed of travel and can suffer significant thermal expansion.  It’s used for other applications in the industrial field but not necessarily for a moveable laser bridge.  This results in more flexing of the beam and distortion of pre-programmed locations, which threaten the stability of the drive and accuracy of laser execution.  To rectify this problem, our competitor added support columns in between the main columns that carry the bridge to reduce vibration.  But that still does not control the flexing of the beam as the laser shuttle travel back and forth repeatedly, nor does it address the thermal expansion effects on the machine’s calibration. This means that you will have to change the individual head setting for all the heads that are under the laser bridge more frequently and at random.  Besides, the extra support is blocking free access to the rear of the embroidery machine.

Bridge and its Relation to the Laser Shuttle Drive

We engineered our bridge of fine 12mm steel and beefed up size to accommodate a laser shuttle of up to 400W for a very good reason.  The Galvanometric laser technology, which is used in the laser bridge by all manufacturers, has the ability to execute data of up to 99 Meters/Min in linear movement.  Our engineers considered this point carefully and matched our bridge with state of the art brush-less motors that can execute movement of up to 100 Meters/Minute to insure that we are properly utilizing the Galva technology as we integrate it into embroidery.  This is where the philosophy and experience of Proel sets its products above the rest.  It’s not just the design, but when, how and why you use it to achieve optimal performance

Our competitors have not even considered this point as proven by their selection of a much less rated bridge and drive system.

Type of Laser Tube Utilized

Proel uses laser tubes that are air cooled for up to 100WATT.  It provides for sufficient cooling through cooling fans that are easily accessible and simple to maintain by only cleaning of the exterior filter.

Our competitor’s machine uses water-cooled tubes that require 2 additional water tubes for 50WATT and higher.  This would require more periodic maintenance to insure proper operation of the tubes.  Furthermore, should this maintenance procedure be ignored for any reason, it could result in failure of the laser tube, which if occurred frequently enough can cause permanent failure.  And that can be quite expensive to replace ($15,000 or more depending on the tube).

Laser Beam and its Accuracy during projection on the cutting surface (or “spot” )

Galvanometric lasers use downward conic projection of the beam.  Proel uses a laser spot that is 0.3mm (i.e. dimension of the laser beam on the cutting surface).  This is the best spot currently available on the market today for Galvanometric laser technology that offer large cutting area of up to 12”.  Furthermore, the Proel machine uses a special type of lens “F Theta”, which is designed and specifically used for the Laser Bridge to provide this narrow beam of 0.3mm spot.  The Proel machine projects its beam from a higher distance above the cutting surface (430mm).  This allows the beam to project the spot more vertically downwards and with minimal slant, especially at the extreme outer points of larger designs.  It will also reduce potential burn marks on the material being cut

With our competitors’ machine, you can actually see how much lower their shuttle is physically seated above the cutting area.  This lower point of projection results in an increased slant of the laser beam, which will cause inaccuracies during cutting of larger designs, such as full front shirt designs.  Furthermore, it will show more burn marks because of the projection of a slanted beam vs. a more vertical beam.

The Proel laser bridge uses a RF remote control to operate the laser bridge.  This intelligent design allows the operator to operate the bridge from any location in the room, for example from the hooping table or from behind the machine as he or she is replacing threads.  It will also allow them to stack jobs for different machines in advance.  Most of all, it will not require a sophisticated operator to operate the machine.  With the remote control method, the operator can command the bridge to start another job on another embroidery machine while it is still running the first job on the first embroidery machine all without having to interrupt his or her normal routine of embroidering.  You can do so for multiple machines simultaneously without any confusion and absolutely error proof.  We guarantee it.

Our competitor’s machine uses push-buttons mounted the actual laser bridge body.  It is only after the bridge has fully completed the first job and has actually returned to the full stop and parking position that it can be commanded to perform the next job.  This will significantly impact production because it will prevent the operator from doing anything else, such as thread change or additional hooping, or removal of hoops from the finished machine run, etc., until the bridge has completed the first job.  At which time the operator must walk to the machine, transmit the next job and then physically push the button to start the machine again for the next job.  This has proven to be counter-productive because of the delay in operation and has impacted the bottom line of certain companies already.  The bridge may cover up to 65’ span of production locations, which the operator will have to walk to and from back and forth as is.

From Specification Sheets ...

Maximum Laser Power available: 200 Watt

Maximum Laser Power available: 100 Watt