Acceleration versus Error - Balancing Performance for Cylindrical Laser Processing Applications

Cylindrical laser micromachining applications such as stent processing depend on small dynamic errors to ensure adequate part quality.  A consideration of typical part profiles reveals that most devices processed require many sharp direction reversals to impart the desired cut path and part shape to the work piece.  Because these directional changes infer high accelerations, any strategy to reduce errors must fundamentally be tied to limiting peak acceleration during the laser process.  The analysis presented details inherent sources of dynamic error, how those sources are influenced by basic mechanical system characteristics, and strategies to eliminate or reduce them.