How to select the ceramic rings/nozzle holders for your laser cutting machine?

Daily maintenance and care for laser cutting machine are particularly important. Especially when it comes to the selection and replacement of consumable parts for the cutting head, many users focus only on the price of these parts and neglect the quality and technical requirements of the product. This can easily lead to varying degrees of damage to other components of the equipment during machine running. The main consumables for fiber laser cutting include three major parts: protective windows, nozzles, and ceramic rings/nozzle holders. These consumables are widely available on the market, but their prices vary greatly. Today, we will focus on introducing the role and selection principles of ceramic rings as consumables for cutting heads in laser cutting machines.

From the initial design of the ceramic ring/nozzle holder, the choice of ceramic material was made for its insulating properties and to create a capacitive effect at the tip of the cutting head. Additionally, the appropriate material hardness ensures normal use and immediate shattering upon impact, dispersing the shock stress and preventing further damage to other components. In sensors repaired by Raysoar, damage such as thread stripping, pin breakage, and body fractures of the sensor are often found to be closely related to the ceramic body. The frequent damage to cutting head sensors is due to the use of ceramic rings with unqualified technical parameters.

Let's take a look at an example of the damage caused to sensors by using ceramic rings with substandard technical parameters.
1. A sheet processing factory in Suzhou, the sensor top pin broke and the screw pressure was damaged in March 2024, and it was sent to our company for repair.

2.

Harbin xx Heavy Equipment Co., Ltd. Sent their broken sensor to our company for repair in Sep.2024.

Damage Analysis
1.The tolerance of the critical dimensions of the ceramic body's outer diameter, roundness, and pin height do not meet the requirement which caused the ceramic body to wobble inside the sensor, leading to wear on the ceramic pins; excessive pin height causes fatigue in the pin spring force, unable to form sufficient contact force, resulting in unstable operation, or even complete insertion or detachment!

2.Upon experiencing a severe collision, due to the excessive hardness of the ceramic body not breaking, the stress is transmitted to the sensor, directly causing deformation of the sensor's threads, the pin being pushed in or falling off, and the sensor body itself breaking.

Key factors to consider when choosing ceramic rings/nozzle holders
1. Tolerance of outer diameter, pin height

2.The air tightness of the ceramic rings/nozzle holders and metal sheet is 100% qualified.

Special glue and clever sealing design ensure 100% air-tightness compliance.

3.Ceramic hardness characteristics
Ceramic materials are almost the same as the original OEM ceramic material , while meeting electrical and mechanical properties. Impact tests show that the ceramic ring of type LPTC09-0003 cracks when subjected to a force of 160N to 180N, which is close to the quality of the original. Ceramic bodies commonly found on the market only break when subjected to 400N to 500N, imagine your cutting head is not safe!